Less Than Perfect
by scifiromance
Summary: The aborted holodeck experiments and the revelation of the emotional failsafe in her cortical node not only cut Seven off from the best of emotions, but also left her vulnerable to the worst ones... 'Human Error' S07xE18 AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/n: Thank you to my beta NikkiB1973 for her feedback on this chapter that helped me form a full plan for this new story. I do not own Star Trek: Voyager.**

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Chakotay had to break into a full jog to catch up with Seven, an exercise that left him thinking that he needed to improve his fitness as well as wondering whether the effort was worth it. She was moving even faster than usual, beyond the demands of efficiency, as if she were trying to escape. Maybe she was. It was that sobering thought that pushed him forward, made him dismiss the doubting voice in his head proclaiming that all this effort had a foregone conclusion. After all, if Seven didn't confound expectations once and awhile, she'd be dead or re-assimilated by now. He forced himself to keep his tone light, he may not be a trained counsellor, but he knew enough to tread carefully. "Where's the fire?"

"Fire?" Seven's eyes flicked briefly to his face, her voice tight with concern and bemusement. Chakotay had to bite his lip, of course that had fallen flat. He noticed that, excepting that briefest of glances, she kept her eyes trained away from his face. She had a PADD in her hand, but he could tell she wasn't reading it. Not ignoring him then, avoiding him. Why?

He smiled at her encouragingly, hoping to draw her out. "You seem to be in a hurry." Not quite explaining what he'd just said, being patronising wouldn't help, just rephrasing.

Seven took a shaky breath in, "I have to finish my report on the subspace warheads."

Ah, the subspace warheads. The topic that had had Kathryn bouncing off the walls when he'd left her in her Ready Room, caught between being relieved and proud that Seven had saved them from the last mine, and the perplexed frustration over her protégé's earlier behaviour that was so inexplicable in her mind. Kathryn never liked a cipher, liked everything and everyone around her understandable and relatable, she didn't know when to let things lie as they fell. But wasn't he stirring things now? After piling his Captain with those dense, gushing volumes of poetry she so loved and cup after cup of coffee, all that to get her to disengage for a little while, he was trying to get Seven, the other side of the equation, to do the opposite and _reengage _with the crew, those who would be her friends if she consistently let them. Inconstancy, to accuse Seven of that would be as laughable as it was partially true right now. "The ship's out of danger thanks to you." He reminded her gently, studying her stubbornly tense features, "You've earned a break." He took a deep breath as he saw her flinch, it was tiny, if he hadn't been waiting for it he wouldn't have caught it. "Why don't you join me in the Mess Hall? Neelix is going to give a cooking lesson." His lips turned upward, but Seven's gaze was so downcast he doubted she noticed, "Talaxian tenderloin in ten minutes."

"I am no longer interested in cooking." Seven informed him mutedly.

Now that wasn't true. Less than two months ago she'd been lapping up culinary texts and serving up meals for the senior officers in the Mess Hall. It had been so good that Neelix had been too charmed to be threatened by her. Her voice hadn't had that icily defensive note it generally had when she dismissed some pursuit that had been forced on her. Instead she sounded…sad. That was the only description he could definitely put to her in that moment, and not for the first time in recent months. "Then come for the company." He pressed, "B'Elanna's going to be there. Tuvok even promised to show up." There, if she wasn't comfortable with him, she could at least relax discussing engineering with B'Elanna, or some finer point of logic with Tuvok. "It'll be fun."

Seven's vivid eyes shifted around the corridor like rolling blue marbles, searching helplessly for an escape route. Finally, she slowed her stride and turned to him. "I appreciate your offer." She murmured, swallowing hard as she kept her eyes on the lower part of his face, not quite able to meet his eye. "Another time perhaps."

Something, once again about her tone, maybe the real, sorrowful but firm regret in her voice, made him certain that there wouldn't be another time. What was she playing at? Other people might've just seen this a one of her usual unconcerned dismissals, but _he _could see that a least a part of her wanted to be included. Why was she letting the Borg side of her win again? If Voyager really was her Collective now, why was she isolating herself? They couldn't replace Unimatrix Zero, or her family for that matter, and maybe it didn't feel good enough but it could be a start. Frustration started to get the better of him and he felt his eyes narrow, "You know, you should try socialising with the crew a little more." He advised her, his eyebrow arching slightly in an unconscious mimicry of her trademark expression when she pointed out the obvious. "It might do you some good."

It _did _do me some good, but that good wasn't real. It almost killed me. Seven silently answered, staring at him. In the split second before he turned away from her, frustrated pity mingling with saddened disdain in his handsome face, her brain transferred Axum's face onto his. That pained, irritated glance of disappointment he'd shoot her when she acted like the drone he didn't want to know. The lump in her throat began to choke her, her human eye burned. The tightness in her chest began to spread as the corridor seemed to warp in front of her. She was going to die like this. Without fulfilling expectations. If she pushed on with her humanity, not only would it…endanger her, it would destroy the _only _purpose she could serve fully, protecting the crew with every fragment of Borg knowledge she still had. Her breath began to roar through her ears, almost drowning out the incessant ticking of the metronome that also boomed just like the warheads. This wasn't right… Her lungs were straining, grasping up her strangled chest for air. Even…even if she preserved with socialising, the limit was there. What was left of her humanity would wither up and die. She was a disconnected drone, not a human, couldn't be a human. A futile experiment. Abandoned.

Chakotay would never be certain what made him turn to look back at Seven, but he did. At first he saw a single shudder pass over her strong, straight back, but seeing that was enough to stop him in his tracks. Then he saw her fine shoulder blades arch, as if trying to contain her frame, which in one blink of his eye, had begun to shake violently. Agonised, rasping sounds that he first thought were sobs and then realised were frantic, shallow and unrelenting gasps for air. He sprinted back to Seven's side, the blood draining away from his own face as he saw the single tear that had trickled down Seven's cheek. "Seven? What's wrong?" he demanded fearfully, sickness rising in his throat as watched her start to sway. He unthinkingly grabbed her shoulders. "Seven?!"

Seven lurched wildly, almost falling back, a breathless cry of terror ripped from her convulsing chest. The man before her was a drone! Dragging her out from under the console… She squeezed her eyes shut as those hands grasped at her. When she opened them again, the green tinged clarity of her enhanced eye revealed Commander Chakotay's frightened face in front of her instead. What…What was going on? The failsafe shrieked a warning, drowning out all else. "Let me go!" she cried out frantically. She felt her legs move, they were paradoxically as heavy as lead yet weak and wobbly. She dropped the PADD as she stumbled, pins and needles in her hands and feet spreading up her arms and legs, even infecting her jaw and lips as she tried to speak. The edges of her human vision were going black, the centre filled with dancing spots of distorted colour as Chakotay caught her and held her up. "Please…please just…let me go…"

"I can't do that." Chakotay told her hoarsely, to hear such wrenching pleading for her, in the state she was in, was heart-breaking. He crouched down to gather up the PADD. Seven almost collapsed against his shoulder, but her body, frozen erect by panic, somehow stayed upright. "Please Seven, I can't do that, I _won't_." He gripped her hands in his but like the rest of her body, they continued to shake uncontrollably. "I'm not going to leave you like this." He squeezed her Borg hand, the metal felt unusually hot as the rest of her skin was coated in a sheen of cold sweat. "Come on, come on now…" He coaxed, a chill of relief filling him as she obey his tugs, almost rough with desperation, towards the nearest door and together they staggered inside.

He'd blindly found the deck's tiny break room. Basically a windowless internal room that led to a staff toilet, there was hardly room for a small couch and a replicator. Thankfully, a new shift had just started and no one had had time to retreat here for a couple of minutes of gossip over a hot drink, it was darkened and empty. He forced himself to turn back to Seven, "Try…Try to take deep breaths Seven." He murmured, but one look at her told him it was hopeless. She'd been hyperventilating before, but now she seemed unable to catch even the smallest breath. Her lips were turning blue, and blood bloomed from the bottom one where her chattering teeth had caught them. He could see she'd probably bitten her tongue too. Her eyes were black, bottomless pools of fear, glazed with tears that had frozen there unshed. Even her Borg self-control couldn't pull her back from this full ledged panic attack, it was probably even intensifying her anxiety as she fought her body's last ditch reactions. Whatever emotional knife-edge she'd been teetering on these past few days, she had fallen from the brink into this. He'd seen it, experienced it, too often to think otherwise.

"Come on…" He repeated, now looping his arm around her waist to lead her in baby steps towards the bathroom. His touch didn't elicit any reaction in her this time, when he'd touched her in the hallway she'd shied and fought blindly. That worried him, she wasn't really aware of him anymore, but it did make her easier to handle.

They shuffled into the bathroom and he let go of her briefly to turn on the tap at the sink. The stupid decorative pebble effect flashed deep blue to indicate he'd set the water to the coldest possible setting. "Hold your hands under this…" When he grasped her wrists he could feel her pulse thrumming against the skin of his palms, too rapid too even try to count. Gently turning her quaking hands palm up, he thrust them under the icy water. As he'd known it would, the shock of the cold made her finally inhale sharply and deeply, though her breathing soon became irregular again as she bowed over the sink, letting him hold her fast under the stream of water. His eyes fixated on her veins in her throat, bulging out through her grey, paper thin skin as her heart and mind refused to slow down. He shook the droplets of water from one hand and used its heel to rub soothing circles into her taut, quivering back. "Cálmate cariña, cálmate." He murmured over and over, "¿Qué pasa?" God, he sounded like his father! Muttering to himself in the colonial Spanish that had been one of the many lingua francas on his homeworld. Well, hadn't he seen his father enact this exact scene repeatedly over the years with his sister? Seized by panic, screaming for their dead mother… He hadn't been so afflicted then, it had hit him years later, after their very home itself had burned… No, he wouldn't think of that now, it wouldn't help who was suffering right now…

He didn't know if Seven had understood or even really heard his words, or if she was attuned to his line of thought, but one of painfully ragged breaths morphed abruptly into a broken sob, then another and another. He gulped thickly as he watched her wide eyes drift closed. "Good, that's good."

Gradually Chakotay's voice pierced the constant gush of the water unnaturally magnified in Seven's ringing ears and an all-encompassing sick exhaustion rolled into to replace the ebbing panic. She yanked her hands out of the sink, but still sagged against it, forced to grip the rim for support. She gagged, but despite the nausea burrowing its way into her gut, she only coughed up a single gob of bile and a little blood from her bitten tongue. It was the metallic taste of that blood that brought her back to herself.

Chakotay sensed the change instantly, felt her back stiffen as the Borg steel in her spine reasserted itself. She was still shaking horribly but had fallen silent, her breathing hard but steady. He dropped his hand from her and stepped back. "Will you be able to walk back to the couch yourself?" he asked quietly.

The cold water Seven had cupped in one of her shaking hands quivered before she splashed it brutally onto her face and nodded wordlessly. Chakotay knew it wouldn't help to hover over her now, and walked backwards into the adjoining room. He spotted the replicator and stood in front of it, careful not to turn back towards the bathroom when he heard Seven a minute or so later tentatively leaving its shelter. Only when he heard the couch creak upon taking her weight did he address the replicator, "Two black coffees with two, no, three sugars."

He could feel Seven's eyes on his back as the two mugs materialised and he gathered them up. "I do not like coffee Commander." She finally told him quietly.

Chakotay smiled at her wanly as he headed over to her. She was still shaking like a leaf, though held one hand over the other in an attempt to hide it. As well as a lingering effect of the panic attack, she probably had low blood pressure…or low blood sugar, he couldn't remember which. Knowing Seven's tendency to renege on regenerating and eating at times of high pressure, it was likely a combination of all three. "Don't tell the Captain but I don't like it much either." He admitted softly, "But it does help at times like this." He knelt beside her and pressed one of the mugs into her hands, holding it steady until he was sure she had a firm grip before starting to nurse his own. "Drink up."

On auto pilot Seven obediently lifted the drink to her lips and took several gulps. It was so strong that the taste itself seemed to burn, and sweet enough to make her teeth ache, but her dizziness faded away as she drank.

Chakotay took a few fortifying gulps himself before risking lifting his eyes to her clouded ones. "Seven…" He began, "Has what happened to you just then…has it happened before?" The thought that the absences the Captain had been disciplining Seven for may well be rooted in recurrent panic attacks, that she might've left her post to curl up in a corner and go through such an ordeal alone and unnoticed, horrified him.

"No!" Seven choked out desperately, then inhaled sharply, reining herself in. "No Commander. I have...never experienced anything like that in my life." She confided thickly but calmly, "A multitude of emotions, irrational, unconnected thoughts, they…overwhelmed me and I could not…" Her voice cracked as she gazed at him, her face full of shame and guilt, "I apologise that you had to witness and contain such a lapse in my self-control…"

"Seven, this wasn't anything to do with self-control." Chakotay told her seriously, taking her Borg hand. He felt her flinch and try to draw back but he held fast. "You had a panic attack, they're uncontrollable by nature…" He sighed, "Believe me, I and anyone on this crew would rather help you through it than have you suffer alone…"

Seven shook her head, "Panic attack?" she echoed, her face closing down even further. "I…I have not experienced anything that merits panic Commander." She told him shakily, evasively. "We have passed through the field of warheads safely…"

Chakotay sighed heavily, squeezing her hands again when her eyes shot warily to his face. "Nothing _needs _to merit it Seven, that's part of what makes it so scary." He moved from a crouch to sit properly on the floor, staring down at the coffee swirling in his mug. "You can be as cool as a cucumber in the heat of battle, handle everything that's thrown at you, and then when things are calm, when all your worries _should _be gone, something insignificant pushes you over the edge…"

His voice was so low that Seven wondered if she would've heard him without the help of her auditory implants, his gaze was directed not at her but inward. He was speaking from personal experience, she realised. "Why?" she murmured painfully, forgetting what he'd just confided to her, albeit indirectly, as fearful, self-hating anger began to surge through her. "It is a malfunction, an emotional defect that derails self-regulation…"

"No." Chakotay countered, "I don't think it's a _defect _in our emotions…more like a failsafe." Seven's eyes went huge with shock once more and she shuddered, any colour that had returned to her face abruptly bleached away by his words. "Hey, are you okay?" he asked in concern, worried he'd started this probing conversation too soon, he should've given her longer to calm down. "Take it easy…" He rubbed his thumb over her metal mottled knuckles soothingly.

Seven snatched her hand back. "Explain!" she snapped sharply, coiling both arms protectively around her quivering sides before gradually regaining control of herself again. She was betraying too much with her own actions. "Explain what you mean by that." She eventually managed to force out.

"I think a person can only bottle up so much, cut themselves off from so much. Sometimes we get so good at turning feelings off your body has to do something…drastic to force you to acknowledge things before you self-destruct." Chakotay murmured thoughtfully.

Seven swallowed. She was certain the Doctor, if he were here, would categorise her decision to leave the emotional failsafe in her cortical node as the ultimate in self-destructive behaviour. But he didn't understand, and neither would Chakotay, that she might destroy the only fully functional, useful part of herself, her Borg rationale, if she removed it. What if, without it, she'd lose all sense of perspective, have nothing but an illusionary personal life interspersed with these…panic attacks? Perhaps her failsafe was the only thing that had held these traumatised, irrational behaviours at bay until now? Still, the thought that Chakotay might think she had such a personality flaw was distressing, unendurable. "And you view me as self-destructive?" she whispered shakily.

Chakotay looked her full in the face, seeing the doubt and fear eclipsing her beauty hurt almost physically. "I think we _all _have the capacity to be self-destructive." He replied, regarding her gently, "You've led an unbelievably traumatic life in most respects Seven, it would be normal, expected for you to react to that. And this year has been particularly tough, you had the Doctor take over control of your body, for God's sake…" This remark provoked the smile he'd hoped for, but strained, only an acknowledgement of his humour really. He relapsed into seriousness, "There was all that happened with Unimatrix Zero, and just after that, your cortical node failed and you almost died…"

Seven stiffened despite herself at the reference to her cortical node, but hoped she managed to hide it with a sigh. When he connected events so starkly like that, his point was hard to deny. "I will concede that the past few months have been…difficult."

"Right." Chakotay agreed, "So you shouldn't blame yourself if those big things got on top of you, or for that matter, if it was a lot of little things added together that got to you." He winced slightly as he thought of his piece of 'friendly' advice he'd given her in the hallway, had that jibe, and it been a jibe he guiltily realised now, served as the last straw. "We've all noticed that you haven't been acting like yourself the past few days…"

Seven stared at him, unblinking. "And how do you know when I'm truly 'acting like myself?'" she questioned harshly.

Chakotay refused to rise to the bait. "I think I've gotten to know you over the past four years, and I'd like to think I'm your friend by now, but I guess you're right, only you would really know yourself and judge your own actions."

Seven bowed her head as his words, honestly said, hit home. If _she _were to judge her own actions, and she had, they were inexcusable. Incompatible with what others expected of her and what she demanded of herself. It was the failsafe that had saved her from those actions. How could she be angry with Chakotay for observing her errant behaviour? "I made an error." She admitted thickly, "When I decided to correct it, the situation was more…complex that I had suspected at first and I malfunctioned."

"We all make errors." Chakotay told her firmly, "As for malfunctions…" Something that had been bugging him finally clicked into place, "The emergency transport the Doctor activated, that was for you?"

Seven blanched, "You have been monitoring me?"

"No." Chakotay answered defensively, "That system always flags up to me on the Bridge that's all." His tone softened, "I don't need to know what it was for, but if the Doctor can do anything to help, let him."

"The Doctor has done all he can for me."

The absolute finality in her tone set chills running up and down Chakotay's spine. "Seven, if your implants are causing problems, then…"

"My cybernetic systems are functioning exactly as the Collective designed them to." Seven informed him, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice entirely.

Another shiver ran up Chakotay's spine and he found he couldn't respond immediately. What could he say? The sinister presence of the Collective still stalked Seven, and his platitudes would do little to keep it away. Finally, he just sighed, and risked reaching for her hand again. The silver streaked fingers of her Borg hand curled up into a webbed fist, denying him, but she didn't withdraw when, on a sudden hunch, he touched her human hand. Physical self-consciousness was not something that he would've attributed to Seven, she never hesitated to explain how her implants assisted her in one way or another, but then, how else was she supposed to accept these permanent scars, acknowledge them without admitting weakness? If, in private, she hated her implants, he couldn't blame her. But like she implied, what could she, he or anyone do about it? "I know…" He said softly, "…and I'm sorry about that."

Seven swallowed as she numbly nodded her head. The pity that always riled her couldn't be seen in his soulful gaze, if it was there at all in him it was overwhelmed by genuine, understanding sorrow. Looking at the flesh and blood man before her, whose empathy welled from a real, damaged soul whose darker memories still occasionally lunged into her consciousness, the thought that she'd believed in her holographic facsimile for a nanosecond struck her as ludicrous. Shameful. Still, she was reminded of the conversation about the metronome, the metaphor for her limitations that had been told by her dream of this man. Limitations he'd tried to free her from… She heard the failsafe again, but it had dulled to a toneless whistle. She had subdued that at least, if not her independent human thoughts.

Chakotay gave a start as he felt her give his hand a grateful, lingering squeeze before standing up abruptly. Her posture like that of the soldier she was in so many ways. "Are you okay?" he asked tentatively.

Seven brushed at invisible dirt on her biosuit, taking a deep breath and then exhaling slowly. "I have fully recovered now Commander."

Chakotay couldn't help but eye her doubtfully. "You're still shaking…"

Seven glanced down at her traitorous hands, eyelashes fluttering rapidly before she half turned her face to him. He couldn't quite judge if her lips formed a dry smile or a weary grimace in the instant before she said, "It can likely be blamed on the coffee. I metabolise caffeine as quickly as synthehol."

Chakotay rose stiffly to his feet. Standing level with her, his will to persevere began to drain away. He told himself he shouldn't push too hard, that haplessly trying to drag down her defences would do more harm than good. "It was pretty strong." He conceded.

"Perhaps I required it." Seven murmured, "But I am calm now." Her gaze flicked between his face and the floor. Chakotay got the distinct impression she was trying to force herself to meet his gaze steadily, calmly. He didn't call her out on it. "Thank you for your…care and concern Commander."

Chakotay looked directly into her eyes then, and she couldn't look away. "No thanks are necessary Seven."

She nodded again, starting to feel like she was a puppet on a string around him in that respect.

"What will you do now?" Chakotay questioned, "Not work I hope?"

"No." Seven assured him, "I am…tired. I will regenerate."

"That seems like a good idea." Chakotay replied, relieved. He'd never seen regeneration in a positive light before, ever. But then, Seven had him mulling over other things he'd never delved into before now. "I'll take you down there…"

"Are you really so desperate to avoid being…corralled into Neelix's cooking lesson?" Seven cut in, smirking at him weakly.

"I'll admit that I wanted to rely on your expertise." Chakotay admitted with a gentle smile, "But I guess a vegetarian shouldn't be learning how to cook 'tenderloin' of anything, Talaxian recipe or no Talaxian recipe, so I can skip this one."

"But not on my account." Seven replied quietly, "You should merely suggest a vegetarian repertoire. Neelix would be horrified that he did not cater to your needs."

Chakotay laughed weakly, his throat tightening as he looked at her pale face. "Maybe you could help me come up with a list of suggestions…"

"No." Seven said shortly, then caught herself, pressing her lips together. "I have an appropriate file you can study, Seven of Nine Alpha Gamma 47." The breath she had been holding left her all in a rush, "Good night Chakotay."

Chakotay blinked, he didn't think he'd heard ever drop his rank, of course he didn't mind, but… "Seven, just give yourself a few more minutes to…" He began hurriedly, only to realise that she'd already left, the door hissing closed behind her.

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**A/n: The translation of what Chakotay says in Spanish is, 'Calm down honey, calm down. What's wrong?' **

**Please review. Do check out the latest chapter of cojack's story 'Legacy' too. **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/n: Thank you to my beta NikkiB1973 for all of her reassuring feedback on this chapter. I do not own Star Trek: Voyager.**

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The short lived flare of anxious energy, the last of her reserves, was snuffed out within Seven as soon as she was out of the break room and back into the corridor. The bright lights made her squint painfully, the dancing lights returning for a split second spin around her vision before she blinked them away. The artificial, unchanging glare was preferable in that moment to Chakotay's soft, intent gaze. She began to walk, an instinct as natural as the one that had made her blink, moving away from the doors and back down the corridor. A sick feeling rose inside her as she realised she couldn't clearly remember Chakotay guiding her towards that room. A serious malfunction, one that had affected her memory centres. No, Chakotay had said it wasn't a malfunction…The Doctor had told her that too, earlier… She cut off that line of thought. She couldn't afford to compare the two, _any _chance she had of living within the narrow parameters the Borg had trapped her in was dependent on dismissing this as an…aberration. Something that could be avoided with careful management and unwavering self-control. Even if Chakotay was correct, and her panic attack was something of an expected reaction, something beyond her immediate control, she could control her circumstances, never push herself that far into unexplored, dangerous emotion again…

Her throat tightened, and her heart instantly began to flail feebly in her chest at the sensation, but to her relief she could still breathe. Regret and resentment blocked her throat now, and they were dull and stale feelings, not in the same league as fresh, threatening panic. Unconsciously, her hand brushed against her brow, vainly trying to dismiss the low hum emanating from her cortical node. It was as if someone had struck a taut piano string in her brain and it was still vibrating. It hovered at the very edge of her senses, not quite a certain sound or a particular pain, surreal but constant; the Borg equivalent of tinnitus. It had faded considerably even in the minutes since she'd left Chakotay, she couldn't quite force herself to see that in a positive light, but it did make the reality of her situation painfully clear.

She shivered. Just once. It was no longer convulsive, the cold truth of things had settled on her and her body had stopped resisting. As if to reinforce the notion that her body had given up the ghost when it came to expressing emotion, after that last desperate panic driven assault, she began to walk more steadily. Her legs were almost as leaden as they had been during the height of the attack, but she could push them to function now. Her head throbbed, but she thought it bearable; her breathing was laboured but she could no longer hear it crashing against her ears. She was back in control. An exhausted control, devoid of any satisfaction, but to feel it was more of a relief and comfort to her than anything Chakotay had said.

Numbness did not come easily to her quick mind however. Since she was avoiding what was really preoccupying her on the grounds of self-preservation, a hateful listless indecisiveness seized her. Normally, when she had a 'setback', if this or any of her other traumas could really be termed as such by anyone other than herself, the choice was simple. She'd go to Astrometrics and stay there until she'd achieved some level of acceptance, had seen enough through her little window into the universe that her problems could only be deemed irrelevant in the scheme of things. Yet, standing alone in this empty corridor, the pull to the equally empty Astrometrics just wasn't there. Not a haven but a gilded Borg cage. Besides, the thought of wilfully ignoring Chakotay's concern about her working made her feel guilty. She'd left his advice unheeded before, more often that she would've admitted to herself let alone him, but now she knew it wouldn't just be a slight but an act of ingratitude.

Vaguely the idea of attending Neelix's cooking class occurred to her. It would be a distraction, but not a lonely one. And she had been the one to start those classes in the immediate aftermath of the crew's rescue from Quarra, so she could even take the lead again if she so wished. However, the idea of being in a crowd made anxiety rear its many heads again, loneliness was unpleasant but more predictable. What if she reacted to a crewmate's passing comment about her recent behaviour as violently as Chakotay's remark had? It just couldn't be risked. In any case, to go to the cooking class now would be an even bigger snub to Chakotay than working, which she knew he half-expected her to do, whatever he said.

Regeneration was the only fit course then. Unease over what nightmares she would face was the least troubling issue. As she made her way towards the turbolift, she was met with two crewmen, Lieutenants Ayala and Chapman, just leaving said turbolift in the midst of conversation.

"I think it must be an error in the emitters…" Ayala was saying in a frustrated tone.

"Across the whole forcefield system?" Chapman questioned doubtfully. "It's unlikely, but it's starting to look like we'll need to plan a system overhaul just to find the fault…"

Seven stared at them. She almost let them go past, but got a grip on herself. She could still have a normal, work related conversation, even right now, couldn't she? "Can I be of any assistance?" She winced internally, her voice was hoarse and shaky.

If the two men noticed, they were polite enough not to give her any indication, instead smiling at her pleasantly, though Ayala's smile was more confident. "I think you could." He replied warmly, with a glance at the wide-eyed Chapman, "I'm no engineer, I just brought the problem to Will…"

"And that problem would be?" Seven enquired hesitantly.

Chapman's Adams apple moved up and down as he met Seven's eye. "Lieutenant Ayala has been seeing issues in the…security forcefield system for the past few days." He expected Seven to bluntly ask why he hadn't informed B'Elanna, but she remained silent. "Since Lieutenant Torres has been leading a warp manifold overhaul for the past week, and the Doctor has been telling us to make sure she doesn't work too hard…"

"Out of her earshot I'd bet." Ayala remarked wryly, "Or else B'Elanna would've spent the last week decompiling the Doctor instead." He kept an eye on Chapman, the man was cripplingly shy around women. He knew his behaviour wasn't really a reflection on his opinion on Seven. When, on the increasingly rare occasions now when someone openly griped about the ex-drone, Will was always one of the first to defend her, in his quiet unassuming way. He'd long suspected there was some sort of story behind that, but Chakotay had strongly advised him and others not to get too curious at the height of speculation about Chapman's fractured shoulder.

"I understand your decision Lieutenant." Seven said quietly, addressing Chapman. "If you will provide me with the scans…" Chapman hurriedly pressed his tricorder into her hand, but she didn't look down at it right away. Objectively, Chapman was a good looking man, but as she looked at him she felt no real, conscious pull of attraction, he was so obviously nervous around her. Had she seen it then? Harry had warned her, but it had seemed irrelevant. Only concrete commonalities between them, listed interests matching with hers, had been calculated in choosing him. He'd been an increased difficulty level for her social simulations, not a hologram, and that had been all. Had she really been so naïve, so detached? There was no such check list that could explain her attraction, her emotional attachment to, Chakotay and it was all the more potent for it. Yet she'd interacted more with a hologram than the real man, who was so different from her, so much further up the social scale, that the attraction had arrived with no rationale behind it. Was she actually more naïve now than she had been when she'd approached Chapman? She frowned painfully, thankfully the men thought she was just studying the tricorder history. "From what I can see, the fault originates in the Brig. Perhaps with a shorted power relay in the central control panel bio gel packs. That I the only point of intersection I can see between all the malfunctioning forcefield grids."

"That would make sense…" Ayala replied thoughtfully, "The Brig has been running at its lowest power output, since we've not needed it for a while…"

"And running persistently at low power output can degrade the bio gel packs." Chapman concluded, "Of course that's it." He shot Seven a sheepish look.

"I do not believe the idiom about a 'fresh pair of eyes' berates the one who was looking initially." Seven assured him awkwardly.

"She's right Will." Ayala agreed, "But we should still thank you Seven. We may not need security forcefields right now, but when we do they _need _to work." He chuckled, "Another idiom for you, when Voyager's in trouble it doesn't just rain, it pours."

"Quite." Seven murmured. Ayala was a striking man, though she always associated him with her first stint in Voyager's Brig. He'd been one of the first humans she'd seen after her link had been severed. Like Chakotay, he was dark, and perhaps they had some distant forefathers in common because she remembered they'd been raised on the same DMZ colony. Through she also recalled that his file told of some recent Middle Eastern roots on his mother's side. He'd been Chakotay's second in command on the Valjean, and now held a similar position in Tuvok's security team. Chakotay may have said he considered her a friend, but here was one of his real ones. Swallowing hard, she said, "I will leave you to your work."

Ayala nodded, uncertain whether he was more surprised that she'd declined to monopolise the work now that she'd solved the problem, or by the fact that she'd stopped to talk to them in the first place. Something made him study her face. Compared to when he'd first laid eyes on her, as a drone, to now, the change was like that between night and day, but… Tonight there were shadows clinging to her, she looked as haunted as she had then. "Thanks again." He told her in firm sincerity. She barely nodded to him before disappearing into the turbolift.

Her stomach sat heavy and churning as the turbolift steadily descended through the decks towards Cargo Bay 2. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to find inside, it was unchanged. The row of alcoves glowering at the storage containers arranged on the opposite wall, the solitary console. The green light that tainted the darkness, unnerved those who entered in search of something used. They'd suited her, that's what the Doctor had said about her holographic quarters, but this place also suited her. The quarters had been fantasy, wish fulfilment, this…cargo bay, this redundant brooding space, was her reality, what she was.

She stared at the floor, shutting herself off from this environment. Her hands, one human and one Borg, wobbled in front of her. She blinked to clear her vision but her hands were still shaking, violently. She clenched them. Caffeine jitters, she thought stubbornly. She finally realised that her hands were empty, she'd left her PADD behind with her report on the subspace charges. The false report, the one that didn't explain why she'd been derelict in her duty. She stumbled over to the console, she would download it again, it was…impossible to go back to Chakotay for it. Impossible…

Her eyes desperately sought the console screen, but its data swam in front of her wet eyes, a nonsensical stream of numbers that as she stared, morphed in her mind into Borg code. The tightness in her chest had long since returned, the fingers of anxiety slipping around her chest almost unnoticed at first, now squeezed hard. She groaned breathlessly, frustrated as well as fearful. No, this couldn't be happening again… In her haze she searched the room for something reassuring, something the children had left. At the thought of the children, her failsafe reacted, her mind suddenly filled with a sound not unlike a child's shriek of fear. Cradling her head, panting, she remembered that she'd packed away the mementos Mezotti and the twins had left her. Why? They should've never been down here, why had she dragged them down here with her? Tears began to leak out of her eyes as she half fell against the console, her failsafe tutted. Azan, Rebi, Mezotti, what if they had these failsafes in their heads too? They were panicking, dying, with her…

It was an unrelenting scream in her head as she fell, giving her no peace even as her skull cracked audibly against the floor. The sound split into voices as she stared, her eyes unable to move away from the alcove looming above her. The green light filled her failing vision, and then everything went black.

* * *

Chakotay sat hunched on the break room couch, his eyes staring aimlessly into the swirling ice cold coffee in his still half full mug as his few minutes with Seven played out in his mind's eye on repeat. Paradoxically, it was the last few snatches of conversation that ate at him. The more he tried to analyse what she'd said, the more his instincts fastened onto the idea that something was wrong, he just couldn't pinpoint what and that made him hesitate. He had been too badly burned in the past to trust his judgement completely where enigmatic women were concerned, particularly when he didn't know the facts…

But _could _he justify being reticent? How many different signals had B'Elanna sent out to him that she was struggling to cope after the massacre of the Maquis? He would never know now. Hadn't known until she was at the height of her self-harming crisis. Only when it was known by others had he stepped in. He crashed the mug down on the small table, fighting to repress the storm of guilt thinking of that situation unleashed in him if he didn't guard against it. He sighed as he checked the table, glad he hadn't cracked it in his fit, and saw that Seven's PADD was there where he'd left it. Tentatively, he picked it up, frowning down at it. No, Seven wasn't unique, far from it. They'd all had their emotional battles, but he _knew _about hers. If he could help her more than he had B'Elanna, Kathryn, Tuvok, then he should.

As much as he honestly believed Seven was entitled to her panic attack after all she'd been through, he also knew she'd taken steps forward in the past few months. Unimatrix Zero had been painful strides. Kathryn had been loyally tight-lipped on what she knew of Seven's time there, but he could read between the lines, he knew that the effect of the experience on her protégé still worried her. He'd told her not to worry, that Seven was resilient, and remembering her alter ego would do her good in time. He wondered now if his words had sounded crass to Kathryn, uncaring. Seven's capacity to rebound from trauma could be unnerving at times, but he'd trusted it all the same. Right now, he realised that a person's endurance could only be so elastic before it snapped. Still, he'd been right in a way, they'd all witnessed her coming out of her shell, more cautiously than when the Doctor pushed her but more naturally for it.

And then there had been Quarra. He was very aware that Seven had saved his life, or at least his identity, in that hospital. Maybe that was why he'd relied on her heavily in the few turbulent weeks afterwards. It was only in the last two weeks that he felt certain everyone had recovered from that. The Captain had withdrawn to her quarters, she'd held together during the immediate crisis of leaving Quarra but had been too confused to hold it together into those first weeks of a restarted, lonely journey. Seven had stepped up, almost taking his role while he held the Captain's and B'Elanna focused on her husband and rebuilding Engineering. Neelix had talked every one of the hundred odd amnesiacs through their personal history, but it had been Seven who re-taught them to do their jobs (which likely explained why efficiency wasn't a problem at the moment) and gave them something to occupy their minds. For a full two weeks she engaged those cowering in the Mess Hall discussing Quarra with cooking lessons, under the excuse that the produce that was on the verge of spoiling after weeks of being left unattended on Voyager had to be used. Looking back he wasn't sure how much she remembered at the time, her usual habits and conventions had only come back slowly, for one she'd refused to regenerate and had slept instead. He suspected now she'd merely trusted that he was telling the truth rather than knowing it. When they'd finally felt able to come out of the trenches, when the social emergency was over so to speak, he remembered feeling a wrench of sorts when she went back to Astrometrics. He'd felt the loss when she'd withdrawn from the crew.

Maybe she had too. Again, he regretted losing his temper at her over the cooking class. Perhaps some of his frustration had been justified, her actions after Quarra didn't need to be an anomaly, but that justification had been selfish…

He jumped as the doors opened, his hand half-extended with the PADD as he tricked himself into believing Seven had returned. Instead he was met with Ayala and Chapman. "Chakotay?" Miguel Ayala was surprised enough by his presence there to forget his rank. "What are you doing in here?"

"Drinking coffee." Chakotay eventually replied shortly, clumsily seeking the forgotten mug with one hand.

Ayala's eyes narrowed. "Right." He responded simply, watching his old friend out of the corner of his eye as he headed for the replicator. At one time, it had been a necessity for him to read Chakotay's moods, his thoughts were impossible, just as much as Chakotay needed that insight with the Captain now. The man was in turmoil, he could see that even Chapman could sense the agitated atmosphere they'd walked into. "Will and I are just stopping for a drink on the way to the Brig, a problem with the forcefields needs sorted out."

"The bio gel packs down there have been degrading." Chapman elaborated as he started on a coffee of his own, drinking quickly. "I was stumped." He admitted modestly as Chakotay glanced at him, listening now. "But Seven of Nine saw the problem immediately…." He stopped as he saw the First Officer visibly pale, his jaw tighten. "Sir?"

"Seven's working?" he asked harshly, rising abruptly to his feet.

"We just met her in the corridor just now." Ayala replied evenly, watching Chakotay intently.

Chakotay jerked his head towards him, "And…" His voice had a strangled note, "And how did she seem to you?" He saw the hesitation, the fact that he was considering his answer, in Ayala's eyes at once and turned sharply towards the door, holding a PADD in a white-knuckled grip.

Ayala moved with the inbred swift decisiveness that made him a good security officer to lightly grip his elbow, eyeing him speculatively. "¿Estás bien?" he asked in a wary undertone.

Chakotay ran his free hand through his hair, his face unreadable for a moment as he answered. "Estoy bien Miguel." He bit his lip as Ayala held fast, not believing him. "Ella no está…"

Ayala gave him a strange look at that, but immediately released him, shaking his head to himself as he watched Chakotay leave without further explanation.

Chakotay practically stormed down to the Cargo Bay, his emotions swinging from worry to anger and back again as if Seven had tied him to a pendulum. When the Cargo Bay's doors opened to admit him, her PADD immediately fell from his hand, clattering to the floor where she already lay.

* * *

**A/n: Please review. Check out cojack's latest chapter for 'Legacy' too. **

**Ayala asks Chakotay if he's okay, he replies that he's fine, then adds 'She isn't...'.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/n: Thanks to my beta NikkiB1973 for all her reassurance about this chapter. I should also mention that I'm in debt to other C/7 fanfic writers, especially Anniexus and Raven12, to formulate details of how the failsafe functions. I do not own Star Trek Voyager.**

* * *

"Sev…" Chakotay choked on her name as his breath caught sickeningly. His heart slammed into his ribcage then stilled, momentarily arrested by the conviction that she was dead. Sprawled out the floor, back still arched with pain, in the shadow of her alcove, like a sacrifice to a grotesque Borg altar. Her eyes were open, staring up at the flickering green light without seeing it…

The bluish electrical surge that suddenly rippled over her optical implant was the shock he needed. He exhaled abruptly, "Shit… Seven…" He muttered hoarsely, aimlessly as he ran the few short strides to her and skidded on the floor, landing awkwardly on his knees beside her. "Seven!" He bent over her, grasped her shoulder and gripped her chin. "Seven!" he barked frantically, loudly, but his voice seemed to be swallowed up by the cavernous Cargo Bay, by the blood rushing through his ears. It certainly wasn't rousing her. Clumsily, he felt for a pulse among the threaded vessels and veins of her throat, but he could hardly tell if it was her heart he felt pumping at his fingertips or his own, wildly forcing adrenaline into his blood. She wasn't breathing. If life was there, it wouldn't take long to… Finally, he thought to slam his hand to his comm. badge, his slick palm sliding over the metal casing. "Doctor! Medical emergency in Cargo Bay 2!"

"Acknowledged." The Doctor replied, the comm. link cutting off as abruptly as he'd answered.

Chakotay rocked back on his knees, forcing himself to focus on her face, slack in unconsciousness but far from peaceful. "Help is coming…" He murmured, more to himself than to her as his untrained, helpless hands sought hers. He flinched in pain as he touched the cybernetic scarring on her left hand, it was burning hot, a surreal contrast to the cold, bloodless skin of her right hand. He kept a gentle hold on both. "You're going to be okay…"

The Doctor gave a start as he materialised in the Cargo Bay, wondering for a second if the transport had muddled some circuits in his memory files, given him what his flesh and blood crewmates would recognise as déjà vu. Seven lying supine on the floor, implants rejecting the impulses of her human heart and body, the outward expression of those impulses kneeling beside her anxiously… He blinked, his grip on his med kit tightening as his sensory input made him see reality but left him more confused. They weren't in the holodeck, this was the Cargo Bay, Seven's real 'quarters' and that was the real Commander Chakotay. He'd hardly listened to the hail after the words 'Cargo Bay', hadn't cared who'd called him. How in the galaxy…

"Doctor!" Chakotay exclaimed, shooting him a fleeting glance over his shoulder before his gaze returned to Seven. "Seven…she…I…"

Hearing Chakotay's shocked, befuddled voice, his famous unbending composure in shreds, dredged up all of the Doctor's medical professionalism. "Step aside Commander." He ordered brusquely as he ran his tricorder over Seven. Exactly the same as before. Cortical node shutdown. Now however, the fail-safe mechanism it had taken him numerous in-depth scans to find was easily seen by the basic medical tricorder, lit up like a beacon. What the hell had gone on since he'd left her? She'd been so aware of the fail-safe's presence, so resolved never to activate it again. Chakotay still hadn't moved, was still holding onto Seven's hands for dear life. "What happened?" he snapped at him irately, all of his guilt and impotent frustration flaring up as he was met with the man who indirectly, unknowingly, represented the problem.

"I don't know." Chakotay replied thickly, numb to the Doctor's accusatory tone. "I…I just found her like this…"

"And what were you doing down here?" The Doctor muttered under his breath as he leaned over Seven, applying a cortical stimulator to her temple, tenderly letting his fingers linger there as his voice cracked with bitter frustration. "I should've known it would happen again, but never so soon..." He whispered to her unhappily, "How did you…"

His voice was so low that Chakotay only caught the word 'again'. A violent chill ran over him, freezing the rolling fear and anxiety inside him into a solid ball of dread in his gut. He scrambled to his feet, staring that the Doctor in stiff horror. "'Again'? What do you mean _again_?"

The Doctor turned to him sharply, his face a hard mask as he shook his head and rapped his comm. badge, "Initiate emergency medical transport to Sickbay for Seven of Nine and the EMH."

Chakotay was left behind as the transporter beamed the two of them away at once. For a moment he just stood there, as if concussed, but his eyes soon zeroed in on a few spots of blood on the floor. Where had that come from? He slowly became aware of a stickiness on his fingers and stared at them. Blood. When he'd touched Seven's head, there had been blood in her hair… She must've…cut her head open when she hit the floor. But a simple head injury didn't explain the flaming hot implants, the pained resignation on the Doctor's face… Furiously rubbing the blood off on his uniform trousers, he turned and headed straight for Sickbay.

* * *

The Doctor had been bracing himself for the Sickbay doors opening, but even so he was surprised how quickly they did so. The Commander must've run all the way from the Cargo Bay. He could hear Chakotay struggling to collect himself as he gazed at Seven, and tactfully preoccupied himself with the adjusting the acuity of the cortical monitor that, thankfully, had now replaced the cortical simulator on Seven's temple. Maybe it wasn't so much tact as avoidance. The suspicion that had occurred to him as soon as he'd been beamed into the Cargo Bay was not just nagging him now but at the forefront of his mind. Had Seven's holodeck simulations been prompted by some real life entanglement with the Commander? What else explained her falling victim to those emotions she herself had just tabooed just hours before? What else explained him being there at all? He shook his head to himself, he was skipping several steps, making groundless assumptions. First of all Seven had been _very _firm on the fact that it was fantasy, experimentation, nothing more, the wishful-thinking of it all, the weakness in that, had been at the root of her shame, he'd seen that. And then there was the fact that had she ever been involved in a secret tryst, the fail-safe would've made itself known to both of them long before today…

"How is she?" Chakotay's hoarse but controlled voice pulled the Doctor out of his mire of speculation.

He reluctantly turned away from Seven to face the man. "I've managed to stabilise her cortical node and with it her whole array and the rest of her implants." He answered in clipped tones, just stopping himself in time from adding 'for now'.

Chakotay's face relaxed perceptively for a moment but his dark eyes were still clouded with heartfelt concern as he stepped towards Seven, his gaze narrowing astutely as he took a stronger stance, clear headed enough now to focus on the tension in the Doctor's voice, the lack of real relief. "Is her cortical node failing?" he asked pointedly.

"No, not failing." The Doctor replied carefully, studying Chakotay's face. His First Officer persona was firmly back in place, and he had to wonder whether he'd imagined the man's concern for Seven as more than he would've shown any other ill crewmember. His perception had been coloured by what he'd seen on the holodeck earlier, just as Seven's obviously had. Still, he had to be sure of what exactly had brought on this new level of emotional activity in Seven, left her failsafe on a hair trigger. "I can't tell you any more Commander, there's doctor-patient confidentiality to consider, but I need to know what you were doing down there."

Chakotay could tell the Doctor was being reticent with him and was reluctant to be any less so. Seven wouldn't have wanted her panic attack to be public knowledge, in his own way he was as bound as the Doctor, and he was beginning to strongly suspect that that panic attack was rooted in some medical problem the Doctor had failed to, or couldn't, deal with. "I went to see Seven, when…when I got there I found her just like you saw, already unconscious."

The Doctor softened slightly, realising now that his unsympathetic attitude to Chakotay was not only unjust, but utterly unhelpful. "If you hadn't found her just then, she'd be in much worse straits." He confided quietly, "I realise Commander, that whatever you and Seven do is your own business, but you need to know that anything I learn about what she's been doing the past couple of hours will help me to help her."

Whatever Seven and I do? Chakotay mentally repeated, wrong footed, and then shook it off as a figure of speech, one that wasn't too far off the truth. He looked at Seven, now lying on a biobed, eyes closed, breath shallow, machines beeping rhythmically beside her. Hopefully, when she understood what he'd seen, what he was seeing, she'd understand why he'd broken his word. If the Doctor was right, it would help her in the long run. She'd just need to forgive him. "She had a panic attack." He explained, having to drag the words from his mouth, "I helped her to get through it. I went to the Cargo Bay to check on her."

The Doctor inhaled a needless gasp of air sharply, his keen eyes instantly shifting to Seven and staying on her face. His own stricken features were a tumult of emotions, fear worry, intense guilt, but not shock. "A panic attack." He echoed dully. A statement, not a question.

"You're not surprised." Chakotay realised, his jaw locking as he stared at the Doctor, waiting for him to deny it, but he didn't. "What the hell is going on?"

"I can't tell you that Commander!" The Doctor burst out, his agitation obvious now. He may not have been entirely surprised by the concept of Seven having a panic attack, but hearing the reality of it had upset him badly, pushed him over the line, always perilously thin with Seven, between the detached humanitarian care of a medic and the love of a protective friend. "I can't just breech confidentiality, personal choice, with Seven again. We've done that too often, defied our own ideal of individuality in regards to her too often…" He frowned despairingly down at Seven before twisting his head bitterly away, "It's contributed to her low self-esteem, the sense of being inhuman, that's led to all this…"

"Seven _is _human Doctor." Chakotay cut him off, then sighed as he caught the resentful glint in the Doctor's eyes in response. He knew that low self-esteem was probably one of the last things a stranger would attribute to Seven, her mannerisms constantly tilted her towards arrogance, but like so many _humans _before her, that attitude was a defensive coping mechanism more than anything else. As much as they'd all, as a crew, fought to help Seven regain her individuality, they'd also undermined it, for her own good and theirs. It was the nature of living on a starship, that personal concerns had to be sacrificed for the survival of the group as a whole, he'd learned that almost as slowly and painfully as Seven had. Maybe Seven hadn't been as narrow-minded as he thought when Seven described Voyager as a collective, perhaps she'd just exchanged the Borg collective for the Starfleet equivalent. He never liked this train of thought, but Seven's situation always provoked dissatisfaction in him, and when he looked at himself honestly he knew it was part of the reason he'd avoided her for a long time. "Look Doctor, I know I don't have any right to deny the decisions we've made before, maybe I'm even more to blame than you or the Captain because I was ambivalent while you two were trying your best but…" He let that sentence trail off, swallowing hard, "I understand why you don't want to break Seven's trust in you again, even 'for her own good', we've used that justification far too often, but it's gone too far now." He walked shakily over to Seven's biobed and touched her shoulder briefly. Under the metal bracing of the nearest implant, she felt surprisingly frail. The ravages, rather than the enhancements, those cybernetic systems had inflicted on her were for once painfully evident. "I won't let anyone's principles, ours or hers, risk her life again." He met the hologram's gaze frankly. They'd never been close and were never likely to be, a long standing colleague relationship was all that bound them. The obstacles, though all minor, were many. Lack of common interests, opposed personalities, one gregarious while the other was reserved to the verge of standoffishness, the fact that the Doctor had expressed his ethical disapproval of contact sports a little too often and too vigorously while Chakotay was always the one called in to break up the Doctor's more petty arguments with, well, everyone. No, they were never going to be bosom buddies, but he hoped the EMH could see that at the very least that their concern for Seven was emphatically shared. "I respect that you've been trying to help her, but this proves you can't do that alone." He sighed once more, "I'll even tell Seven that I hacked your programming if I have to."

The Doctor knew that Chakotay wouldn't interfere with his programming, he was one of the few senior officers who never had, and he liked to think this was mostly on principle rather than a lack of knowledge of holographic technology. His resolve for a stand-off began to fail him as he looked down at Seven, Chakotay was right, things couldn't stay as they were, whatever Seven wanted. He regarded Chakotay again, more thoughtful now that hostile. No there wasn't a relationship there, if what Chakotay had said was true, and he knew it was, then it fit perfectly within his code of behaviour to help Seven. A strange quirk of fate, and one that had likely made Seven deteriorate quicker, the idea that the man she was attached to was the one who had stepped in to help her cope with freeing herself of that detachment, but one that eased his own burden of responsibility considerably. "For the past few days…no, likely weeks, Seven has been conducting social experiments on the holodeck." He cleared his throat, "Creating a personal life of sorts for herself."

Chakotay waited for the Doctor to continue, but the hologram just watched him, obviously expecting some sort of reaction. "I guess that explains why she's been a bit distracted lately." He remarked non-committedly, but the Doctor still urged him on with his eyes. "You don't really expect me to chastise her for that do you?" he asked pointedly, "Maybe she could've chosen a better time to neglect her work, but we've all been guilty of it. The Captain was just being harsh because of the stress of the past few days, because she gets antsy when Seven's not acting as she expects. Some…personal interaction…" He shifted awkwardly, "…that's what the holodeck is _for_. Relaxation, a band-aid for loneliness, every single one of us has…indulged in that at one point." He thought of Fair Haven, the recreation of Risa that had consistently been the most popular program for the past seven years… Hell, even people who weren't stranded in the Delta Quadrant made the holo-suites the most trafficked part of any bar or hotel. Voyager wasn't a convent. True, he never would've thought that Seven, with her overdeveloped pragmatic sense of reality could accept fantasy on any level, but then again he too was always aware he was with holograms, that didn't mean it was worst that nothing at all.

The Doctor was pleasantly surprised by Chakotay's lack of judgement, practically shrugging off what the more prudish would've politely tried to sideline. "Oh no, _I _never chastised her, I encouraged it when I knew, it's a key to humanity after all…"

"Yes Doctor." Chakotay interrupted impatiently, "I don't disagree with you, but I also don't see how a little fun on the holodeck could've left Seven like _this_." He glanced at Seven worriedly, then looked away guiltily. He shouldn't even imply that something she'd wilfully done had led to her state, it wasn't fair. He was also aware now just how mortified Seven would be if she could hear this conversation. If Kathryn, well over a decade older with emotional experience beyond that, could get embarrassed about her dalliance with an Irish barman, then Seven would be paralysed with shame for something even several degrees more innocent. Ironically for a drone, she considered reliance on others the greatest weakness, had to isolate herself just to prove her new independence.

The Doctor hesitated, knowing he was at the edge of a precipice. He could still close his mouth, he hadn't told Chakotay anything yet that he couldn't take back but…could he handle this alone? On balance, could his guilt over breaking this trust, of ambushing Seven with the help of the one person she was emotionally vulnerable to, outweigh her life itself? "It wasn't the simulations themselves…but what they uncovered." He revealed shakily, "I found her collapsed, for the first time, in the holodeck just a few hours ago." He braced himself against his console, "When I discovered the cause…I was…" He held Chakotay's wide gaze. "There is a component of her cortical node, a failsafe if you will, which shuts down her higher brain functions when she reaches a certain level of…emotion simulation." Somehow, once he managed to bite the bullet and admit the crux of the problem, the diagnosis left his lips in a measured, professional tone, as if he were explaining the common cold.

Chakotay stared at him, clouded eyes uncomprehending. "Emotional stimulation?" he echoed uncertainly, brow furrowing as he suddenly sluggish brain refused to readily connect the dots. He lurched slightly when he finally did, the Doctor having delivered a stronger, more unexpected blow than a kick to the gut would've been. "You're…You're saying that her emotions shut down her implants? That her _emotions _nearly killed her twice today?" He risked one furtive glance at the Doctor's face and swore under his breath as he inhaled sharply. "No…no, it's impossible! I've _seen _Seven get emotional! Angry, paranoid, scared, grief-stricken, guilty… Yes, she internalised a lot of it, but it has been there! You have to be wrong…"

"This second activation just proves that I'm not Commander." The Doctor replied sadly, "I _had _theorised that it was only certain types of emotions that activated the failsafe, but now that it's apparent that a negative emotional crisis can trigger it, it's clear that it's sensitive to _any _emotion at a certain level…"

"So you thought it was just _happy _emotions that triggered it?" Chakotay spat out before heaving a deep breath and plunging back into his confusion, "That…That still doesn't explain how she could've avoided activating this…fail-safe for four years…"

"No, it doesn't." The Doctor agreed wearily, "It could well be that there were other components in her implants that acted as emotional suppressants and her brain is only now overcoming that. Combined with the psychological truth that a seriously traumatised person naturally represses emotion just to cope…" Chakotay flinched as the Doctor caught his eye as he said that, "…then that could explain it. But…"

"But?" Chakotay pressed, that one word almost a groan.

"I suspect the fail-safe wasn't a component of Seven's original cortical node. It's possible that after she was freed the Collective adapted these fail-safes into the cortical nodes of all subsequently assimilated drones to curb the threat of other rogue drones." The Doctor's mouth twisted bitterly, hatred, a rare emotion for the healer, vivid on his face. "It would certainly be efficient."

"So, when Icheb donated his node to save Seven's life…" Nausea welled in Chakotay's throat and he half hunched over as he thought of the torment both Seven and Icheb had gone through at that time. _No_. Fate couldn't be that cruel. He closed his eyes, feeling ready to crawl out of his skin, _punch_ something until his knuckles bled… And hadn't he, in his infinite damned wisdom, predicted this when Kathryn kept her aboard? That Seven would never escape the Borg? That their insidious pull would be too strong? Through he'd been the one who'd tried to suck Seven out of an airlock, it was Kathryn who was being cruel in her misguided altruism, putting the little girl he'd seen through existential agony that would overshadow any life she'd have. Kinder to wipe out eighteen years of misery with death. Seven had proved him wrong, wonderfully so, but the Borg had not. At the last hurdle they'd finally stolen what she'd fought for back from her… He almost gagged, choked by his horror, rage and grief. Rather than be sick, or cry, his mind numbly let loose a stream of fervent curses in four languages that would've made a Klingon blush. If the Borg Queen had been there just then, he would've gladly been assimilated seconds later just to get the satisfaction of killing her first…

The Doctor was unnerved by this venting of rage in the Commander, experience told him that Chakotay kept himself well reined in for a reason, Seska had proven that the man was dangerous, to himself and to others, if he allowed himself to get provoked, but it was also a relief of sorts to see him react this way. It told him he'd been right to tell him. "Of course, I began working on a way to deactivate the failsafe at once…" He began quickly as Chakotay's outburst blew itself out, "…but Seven refused. She was determined that she wouldn't activate her fail-safe again, that she'd had enough of emotion and humanity for the time being. She hid from the problem in her Borg shell…"

Chakotay grimaced, clearly able to imagine the scene the Doctor described. Unbending will. Stubborn arrogance, icy dismissal of the Doctor. But he could also _remember _Seven struggling to catch her breath, sobbing into the sink, shaking in his arms like an injured rabbit, bravely and bitterly assuring him that her implants were functioning as they were designed to… He shook his head at the Doctor, biting back a snort. "_Of course _she avoided and denied what was happening Doctor, that is the essence of human nature. Wouldn't you want to hide after hearing that your emotions could kill you?" He sighed as he regarded the Doctor and a new realisation hit him, "You not sure you can help her are you? That's why you let her try to ignore it, to think that she might have to live like this. Doctor-patient confidentiality or not, if you had a sure method to help her, to save her, you would've gone to the Captain to ensure you could do it whatever Seven thought in a split-second, you've done it before. But not this time. You don't know what to do."

The Doctor gulped several times before answering. "I've been trying to formulate a treatment since I found out, but even I can't be certain of a course of action in just a matter of hours! This is the cybernetic equivalent of brain surgery, and this whole situation shows how little is known about cortical nodes!" He was on the verge of yelling, but quickly calmed himself. "I told Seven it would at least entail several surgeries, and she wasn't willing then, how I can tell her I'm not even sure if it'll help? That she might die from the treatment?"

Chakotay saw now that the hologram's eyes were full of distraught tears and squeezed his shoulder. "But we can't leave her like this either. We'll just need to help her face it all." Resolutely, he pulled a chair over to Seven's bedside and sank into it. "I'll stay here and you go and conduct more research on what can be done."

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**A/n: Please review. Remember to check out Teya's new story, 'Contrary'. The latest chapter provides the best backstory for Chakotay we fans are ever likely to see and great insight into Seven's life post-Endgame too. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/n: Thanks to my beta NikkiB1973 for all her feedback on this chapter. Everyone who is interested in the themes of this story should read Teya's fantastic, insightful one-shot 'Thundersnow', which explores Seven's anxieties post-Endgame.**

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"Is that what I think it is?"

The Doctor flinched at the underlying harshness in Chakotay's low tone but didn't turn, his eyes remaining fixed on the small object resting in his palm. To an untrained eye it could've almost appeared innocuous, a filter for a plasma conduit perhaps, or even a light fitting of some sort. Only the lingering dim green hue it still seemed to emit, long after deactivation, betrayed its Borg origins. Even then, most would not see this component for what it was, a technological marvel. A grotesque parody of the miracle of natural evolution, the trophy piece of the violent triumph of technology over biology, yes, but from a scientific distance an achievement all the same. Unfortunately, Seven of Nine didn't have the benefit of that distance, and through her neither did he. She had one of these things jammed into her brain... He shook his head darkly, carefully twirling it between his fingers, intently studying it from all angles. "If you think this is a Borg cortical node, then yes, it is what you think it is Commander."

Chakotay grimaced as he heard the small drawer the Doctor had pulled the node from rattle tellingly as the hologram closed it firmly. He felt his already grinding jaw click and rolled his shoulders agitatedly, both to relieve their aching stiffness and to distract himself as he tried to rein in his frustration. He didn't quite succeed, his next question curtly judgemental. "How many components do you have rolling about in there?"

"The need for one of Lieutenant Commander Tuvok's containment fields passed a long time ago, if such were ever really necessary." The Doctor replied dryly before finally facing Chakotay, the defunct cortical node still in hand. "This is as necessary for my work, and as harmless, as human skeletons once were to Earth's medical research pioneers." He justified primly before sighing, able to guess what Chakotay was thinking. "Seven has always known. In fact, this node isn't even her original one. Do you remember the drone I autopsied?"

Chakotay stiffened despite himself, he'd been having an even closer encounter with the Borg at that point. Riley obviously hadn't thought to recover one of her deactivated brethren from Voyager's morgue. "How could I forget?" he muttered, running one hand through his hair as the other reflexively found the tender spot at the base of his neck where a neural processor was still rooted in his spine.

"Well, this node was his." The Doctor explained, "As are most of the components I have here for research and reference. Keeping what I'd removed from Seven long term always seemed...in bad taste." His eyes closed briefly as he remembered the cathartic moment that destroying her dysfunctional, killer node had been for him. It was still a relief to think on it, even now as it was tinged with regretful hindsight. That node had been uniquely adapted to her brain, developing with her since childhood, and would've given him a unique insight into how to reconfigure the replacement to bypass the emotional failsafe, whether or not the failsafe was a new factor. He should've known better. Shoving the guilt aside, he placed the node he _did _have into the molecular scanner.

Chakotay sighed as the tuneless beeps from Seven's monitors filled the silence and shifted awkwardly in the hard chair in which he'd settled in for a wary vigil, accidently whacking his knee against the biobed as he tried to stretch out his legs which were twitching with fatigue and anxiety. The shot of pain was forgotten as his eyes went fleetingly to Seven's face. As exhaustion and hunger had set in, coupled with his unease over how Seven would react to his presence, he'd mentally drawn back, spending more time staring at the wall beyond her bedside than at the woman herself. As he grunted sheepishly at the pain of his bump, he half-expected her to, willed her to, turn her head and meet his eyes with that unblinking, coolly enigmatic, gaze of hers, framed by the arch of that hard metal brow. However, he noticed that said brow had pulled down with its blonde partner into a frown. The last time he'd risked looking at her, her face had been slack, empty. Her body was still limp, sprawled at odd angles. He couldn't help but think, as he took in the sight of her both perfectly moulded and terribly scarred body, of one of the battered toys he'd played with as a child. His uncle had had a small antique toy collection, and the one he'd always been most fascinated by was a toy soldier. Once, he'd broken the mechanism that held it upright, made it move, and the figure had fallen back under its own weight... He swallowed, what a metaphor. Listening intently, he realised the rate of the monitors' alerts had quickened, and indeed that pained frown was enough to tell him Seven was beginning to surface. Gently, he touched the long webbed fingers of her hand. The metal was still warm to the touch, but the searing heat that had burned his skin when he'd found her had receded. "Doctor…" He began hesitantly, "I think she's waking up…"

"I know, the monitors are going their job." The Doctor answered brusquely, though as he made a beeline for the replicator he shot Seven a tellingly anxious glance over his shoulder. "5mg of ambizine." He ordered swiftly, some of the tension easing out of his photons as the hypospray vial readily materialised.

"Ambizine?" Chakotay echoed, "I thought you wanted her to wake up, not to sedate…" His voice stuttered in his throat as he felt Seven's fingers flutter under his hand. A rasping groan escaped from her pinched lips, a deeper breath suddenly inflating her chest.

The Doctor expertly inserted the ambizine into the waiting hypospray, unjustly reminding Chakotay of readying a phaser. "I have to take precautions." He explained tersely, "If she panics again, triggers the failsafe for a _third_ time, I might not be able to resuscitate her. There would certainly be brain damage…" He sat down heavily by the biobed, directly across from Chakotay, shoulders hunching over as he peered down at Seven, distress and frustration competing for dominance over his weary features. "I'm having to walk a _very_ thin tightrope here…" He ground out.

"Oh, I understand that." Chakotay assured him through gritted teeth. "But…" He stopped himself, gripping the bridge of his nose as he considered how to put phrase his, decidedly muddled, thoughts diplomatically. "But doesn't sedating her, even 'for her own good'…" As before, that hackneyed justification left his mouth contemptuously, "…affect her ability to consent?"

The Doctor's face darkened, "My programme isn't that specific…" He forced out, his hands shaking violently, it was as if his programming was already rejecting this reasoning as immoral, inserting an error into his vocal chords and restraining his healing hands. "If…If I could I'd fix her now, before she could go through anything else, whether she didn't like that decision or not." He gazed at Chakotay almost beseechingly, "Do you really think she should hear everything behind this? The details aren't exactly reassuring to someone in such a fragile state."

Chakotay swallowed hard, he was right of course. Not only was there the spectre of Icheb's live-saving node being damned in reality, he was still hoping that would prove a false alarm, though the origins of said node didn't alter the existence of the failsafe, but there was the fact that the Doctor didn't know what to do… "No, nothing about this is _reassuring_, but it's the truth, and she deserves that from you more than kindly white lies." He replied, "And what kind of message do you think it sends her to sedate her? She needs to learn that her emotions aren't something to fear and suppress…." His stomach twisted, the remnants of that tar black coffee sloshing sickeningly around his empty gut, "These are unique and dangerous circumstances, I know, but the last thing she needs is any kind of reinforcement that her emotions need to be dulled and controlled."

The Doctor's resigned sigh, the way he turned away from him and rose sharply to his feet, told Chakotay that his assessment had hit home. Seven moaned softly, as if in agreement, the sound mingling with the shrill beep of Sickbay's molecular scanner. The Doctor attended to the scanner first, his face growing even grimmer as he read the results. "Well, according to this, our…John Drone was never burdened with an emotional failsafe."

Chakotay stomach dropped, "Then Icheb…" He slammed his fist against the edge of the biobed, "¡Maldita sea!" he cursed under his breath, "¡Madre mía!" He inhaled deeply to control his outburst as a shudder passed over Seven's frame and her eyelids began to flicker. "Well, that explains why Seven never knew about the failsafe, it was introduced after she was freed…" He said in an undertone.

"I think to say that drones 'know' anything is oversimplifying the Collective, no drone is aware in the sense we'd understand it. The Hive Mind appears to have introduced this…innovation, but, as you know, it can function quite detachedly from the minds of the drones, illogical as that might seem. Icheb certainly didn't realise."

"That's true." Chakotay murmured, again finding the distorted memories of his time with the Cooperative spinning around his brain. As intensely immersed as he'd been in _their _memories, in Riley's emotions, it had all been a deception, and in the end they'd been able to control him without his realisation, let alone against his will. "People aren't meant to be linked in that way." He ground out, thinking cynically of Riley's thoroughly convincing arguments to the contrary.

"I won't argue with you on that." The Doctor agreed solemnly, visibly bracing himself as Seven finally made a stronger movement, her head flopping towards his voice as her eyes began to blink awake. Chakotay was glad to see him put the hypospray aside for the moment, instead grasping a small pen torch. Seven's fluttering lids were peeled back as he flashed the light in each eye. The Doctor almost smiled, such was his relief, as the pupils in both her human and artificial eyes reacted at the same rate; if either had been sluggish it would indicate damage to her brain or her node. Seven recoiled from the light, wincing in pain. A little photosensitive then, but that was to be expected. "Welcome back." He murmured as her gaze focused slowly, her head angled awkwardly away from the light.

Seven's arm jerked at the elbow, her hand struggling up towards her temples, not quite reaching before it dropped back to the biobed. "Aj, mitt huvud…" She mumbled hoarsely, strained mouth hardly parting.

"Yes..." The Doctor soothed, "Your head's taken quite a battering." His voice was the gentlest Chakotay had heard it, devoid of its usual bluster. The hologram's fingers absently brushed Seven's forehead tenderly, touching the exact point on Seven's painfully puckered brow under which her cortical node lurked. How the hell he could picture that anatomy so clearly disturbed him, either the Cooperative or Seven herself were likely to blame for the nugget of knowledge being embedded in his brain. "You collapsed in the Cargo Bay."

Seven squinted up at him, still blinking blearily. "Doctor." She stated stiffly, though there was a confused edge to her voice.

"Yes. You're in Sickbay, you collapsed in the Cargo Bay." The Doctor reaffirmed without batting an eyelid. "Now..." He laid a hand on her arm, stroking it. "Can you tell me how you were feeling before you collapsed, can you describe the emotions?"

That Seven understood this question was painfully apparent, even from Chakotay's viewpoint, who'd pulled back from the biobed a little to give her space. She shrank back from the Doctor, however weakly, her body starting to curl into a foetal position before she caught herself and straightened. Her reply was just as severely forced, "My emotions are irrelevant."

The pity in the Doctor's eyes was all the more transparent as his mouth pursed and he shook his head firmly. "No Seven, they're especially relevant." He sighed, "You collapsed because your failsafe activated again."

"But...But I was not on the holodeck." Seven choked out, her face paling even further when the Doctor held her gaze, "No, no, I was not...I would not..." She gulped repeatedly, "It was not the failsafe...I...I panicked..." Both the Doctor, and Chakotay out of her sight, winced at the sound of her monitors beginning to squawk in warning. Seven, of course, misread the expression as judgement. "It was an aberration! I will control it..." The words burned her throat, it grew tighter and tighter, snuffing out her voice. Why did he refuse to acknowledge what she was saying, what she was admitting to? No _implant_ could make her feel like this, no, it was a human error. Frustration made her chest heave for breath, fighting a crushing weight on her chest as heat needled her eyes. "I was in the Cargo Bay, I thought I had neutralised the attack but..." She tried to gulp again but the muscles refused to contract beyond the lump in her throat. It didn't make sense, the Cargo Bay was safe, she hadn't been under threat. No, she hadn't been, the children, she'd been thinking of the children... A sob was wrestled out of her by the thought, and the Doctor's stricken look made her bristle with irrational anger. "Why are you so fixated on me?" she demanded in a hoarse shout, "I...I can adapt, but the children..." Even through her hazy vision, the pain in her head that was building again was almost blinding, she saw the Doctor blanch. He hadn't even though of them! Mezoti, Azan and Rebi had been forgotten in the diversion her holographic fantasies had given him. "If they have these components they are in imminent danger..." Her voice broke, she was breathless, her tongue was heavy, numb and useless, but she cried out the next words by sheer force of will and weight of distress. "They may already be dead!"

"Seven, Seven, there's not any evidence that the younger children were affected , they were assimilated before you were freed..." The Doctor explained rapidly, "Please, you damaging yourself won't help..." He glanced frantically at the now screaming monitors, ashen faced. "You _need _to calm down..." He knew he was losing his grip on the situation, he had act fast. "Forgive me..." He began as he found the hypospray behind his back.

Chakotay had already bounded to the biobed, forgetting restraint, and waved the Doctor aside, mouthing at him to wait. He half knelt by the biobed, grasping her quaking hands. "Escúchame...Escúchame por favour..." He began breathlessly, unthinkingly. It was only when he firmly turned her face, etched with fear and agony, towards him, his hand surprisingly steady against her cheek, that he knew what to say. "Listen Seven, we'll make contact with their ship, the kids' ship. I know contact hasn't been regular, but we'll make it a priority. And they were so full of life here that I think if they each had a failsafe we would've realised..." He swallowed, like Seven horrified of the thought of the flipside of that argument. "They were less dependent on their implants, they'd adapt..." He continued smoothly, "And you met the twins' mother, you entrusted them with her because she loves her sons, and Mezoti too, she'd do everything, and the doctors they had were briefed by the Doctor..." He hesitated before meeting her wide, clouded eyes, which were fixed on his face. "Icheb's parents were criminal, but that was a unique situation, you did the right thing letting the others go..."

Seven stared up at him, confused even as his words acted like a balm. Why was he here? She was in such a state she couldn't quite dissociate him from her hologram, not with his dark eyes focused on her, full of care and concern. She'd been arguing with him...no, she'd been thinking of the children, and she'd felt faint. He'd cried out, and she'd watched the floor coming towards her... Oh, her head hurt, was splitting in half, she couldn't think... Not even with his warm hands on her, directing her over the piano keys, she couldn't think at all when he did that. The metronome would keep her right... But its ticking was so irritating and he hated it... Yet he was still saying good things about the children, and they must be warned. "Promise..." she whispered pleadingly.

Chakotay dried the tears running freely down her cheek with his thumb. The alarms were still active, but had dwindled down to a persistent whine. He understood what she was asking. "Yes, I promise. I'll contact them, you have my word." He assured her thickly, "It's okay..."

"Yes." Seven replied with sudden clarity. The white noise that had filled every crevice of her mind, fear and pain, memory and emotion, had faded abruptly, leaving reality behind. She flinched shyly under his hands, pulling back, twisting her heavy head round to glance at the Doctor. "You told him." She stated robotically.

The Doctor's shoulders sagged, "I didn't have a choice. Commander Chakotay was the one who found you in the Cargo Bay, who told me about your panic attacks. So yes, he knows about the failsafe..."

"I made him tell me Seven, I'm sorry." Chakotay told her sincerely, "I was concerned for you..."

"I know." Seven forced out bravely, eyes closing briefly to hide the tears threatening to form. He was both wrong, wrecking her privacy without a thought, and too good for her. "And the holodecks?"

Chakotay sighed, but the lack of recognition in his eyes, made her relax a fraction. He didn't know any details about what she'd been doing, his part in it. Why that still mattered to her, she wasn't sure, knowing as much as he did, knowing that much more wouldn't make much difference at this stage. She'd grasp whatever shreds of dignity she still had in his eyes with both hands. "That doesn't matter, other than bringing this issue to light." He tried to smile at her, "You were only late to work once Seven, and you still saved us from the mines, don't be so hard on yourself."

Seven turned away from him, finding his kindness hard to take. "It is unavoidable."

"It's the Collective who've inflicted this on you, not your own emotions Seven." The Doctor reminded her, "However, they are the trigger, and it seems I underestimated the Collective's deviousness. Now that the failsafe has been activated once, by certain emotions..." He cleared his throat, avoiding looking at Chakotay, "...it can be activated by _any _strong emotions, even those you've been experiencing for years." He gazed at her desperately, "I never should have made the surgery seem optional. This failsafe will kill you now as surely as the implants your immune system was fighting would have if I hadn't removed them four years ago."

"Adapt or die." Seven summed up bitterly, sighing when the Doctor recoiled at her phrasing but didn't argue.

"I'm not going to lie and say that I wouldn't be going into unknown territory with this just as much as four years ago, but I'm willing to try." He told her determinedly, "If this works, you'll have so many benefits, try to think of this in the last bump in the road to your humanity in the fullest sense."

Seven felt the lump rise in her throat again. It wasn't choking this time, wasn't accompanied by the crushing wrecking ball of panic; apparently an acceptable level of emotional mentally and physiologically. "You cannot promise that." She reminded him, "I function as I am now...I have limitations but I cope under normal circumstances. I am useful to this crew as I am. The more emotional I am, the more problems I cause..."

"Not only problems..." Chakotay spoke up, "...but more happiness too. Yes Seven, you've adapted well, helped us all immeasurably." He gave her a faint, self-deprecating smile, "And ironically, considering what my feelings once were, I can't imagine Voyager without you anymore."

"But that sentiment is as I am now." Seven pressed stubbornly, tearfully. "Without the failsafe. If it is removed, emotions may overwhelm me. I will not be able to function with panic attacks and tears and irrational fear..." Her voice cracked.

"We're not saying it won't be difficult, every single person on this ship has had longer to learn to cope with those feelings than you have, but you _will _be able to learn." Chakotay assured her, "I trust your instincts and emotions Seven, those were what led you to save Icheb, help Unimatrix Zero, almost suffocate yourself to make sure we all survived status..." He smiled ruefully, "A Borg drone wouldn't have done all those things and more. You need to trust yourself, and trust that this crew will help you."

Seven gave a single sob, a sound that seemed to startle her more than them. "I am afraid." She admitted thickly, but then stiffened her shoulders. "Proceed as you must." She croaked out angrily, though they both knew the anger wasn't really directed at them.

"Then I have your permission?" The Doctor asked in hopeful relief.

Seven nodded leadenly. "We must inform the Captain."

Chakotay's eyes widened a little. "You have control over your own treatments now Seven..."

"Yes." Seven agreed, "But it is the Captain's right to be informed, as I presume I will be absent from duty for a period of time."

"For sure." The Doctor confirmed, "But we can tell her later, you don't have to. You're still ill..."

Seven shook her head wearily, "No. If you hide this from the Captain, on my behalf or otherwise, it will affect her relationship with her First Officer and Doctor, which will negatively affect the functioning of Voyager. The precedent is well established."

Chakotay inhaled sharply. Seven was obviously better acquainted with ship's politics than he'd given her credit for, but then she was the farthest thing from stupid and Kathryn Janeway was less than subtle when she felt aggrieved with anyone, particularly himself. "You know us all too well Seven." He told her wryly.

Seven turned away from him, half curling up under the thin blanket. She'd never know him well, even if she were woefully transparent to him. "Certain things are self-evident." She told him, wiping at her traitorous eyes and trying to smooth out her scratchy voice. "It takes no great insight."

Chakotay sighed heavily, she was still underestimating herself. "Maybe." He murmured, looking for her nod of permission before tapping his comm. badge. "Chakotay to Captain Janeway..."

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**A/n: Please review and remember to read 'Thundersnow'. :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/n: Thank you so much to my beta NikkiB1973 for all of her insightful feedback on this chapter.**

**I do not own Star Trek: Voyager.**

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Janeway rubbed her aching temples as she trudged her way towards Sickbay. Her right eye twitched as the stress migraine reliably settled behind her eyeballs. Maybe aliens were using her as a lab rat again, she considered darkly, she hadn't felt this run down for such a long spell since those 'scientists' had probed her adrenal glands like a pin cushion. She felt a chill of sick relief run up her spine as she realised she could remember the incident vividly. It was cold comfort.

She was uncomfortably aware of how strong the temptation had been to ignore Chakotay's call. Hell, if he hadn't specifically mentioned Sickbay, she knew she probably would've hurriedly found a plausible reason to put him off, just as she had been doing ever since… She exhaled in frustration, anger flaring inside her again. It wasn't that she wasn't _grateful _to Chakotay for unveiling the whole Quarra conspiracy, an alien government had _kidnapped _and _brainwashed _her crew, of course she was grateful, intensely, but that didn't mean the transition hadn't been difficult. She had to be thankful that she was headed for Sickbay, she was well acquainted with its location, but just yesterday she'd spent a frightening, embarrassing, 15 minutes trying to locate the Exobiology lab, disorientated even while listening intently to the Computer's directions. Worse, the faces of the crew she'd led, fought for, still blurred together in her mind. When she lay awake at night, memories of Jaffen and Mark jumbled together intoxicatingly. Old and new feelings of loss and loneliness cleaved together inseparably, old wounds throbbing with fresh infection. Was it any wonder she felt a little resentment towards Chakotay for ripping her away from a life which had finally felt settled and simple? It wasn't fair to feel it, it was unjust, but, like Voyager's situation, it was what it was. The more time she'd had to pile back on the burdens the Quarrans had so cruelly allowed her to briefly cast off, the more she found herself struggling under their weight; the more she remembered and recoiled from. She'd been drowning. Today, ironically as they were under the threat of those mines, she'd relished the sense that she had her perspective back, the fierceness of her determination to protect her crew, get Voyager home, had surrounded her like a familiar old blanket, providing the reassurance she needed. She could still be Captain Kathryn Janeway. Her experience with the Quarrans hadn't robbed her of her drive.

But they had, hadn't they? She'd had no inkling down there of Voyager, of Earth. She'd not only been clueless, but _happily _so. It had scared her so much, she'd felt so off-balance in her real life that she'd desperately asked the Doctor if she'd been brainwashed more deeply than the others, if the Quarrans had had to fight to wipe out her commitment. He'd gently told her that while there was no evidence to say so, it could well have been the case… A big fat no then. God, it wasn't Chakotay she resented, or Seven or Tuvok for that matter, both of whom had proven a stronger emotional connection to Voyager than she apparently had, but herself. How could she keep going, pushing the others on, when it seemed like subconsciously, she seemed to be one of those most willing to give up? How the hell was she supposed to accept that? She hadn't just unwittingly betrayed Voyager, she'd betrayed the principles that had kept her anchored for the past seven years…

She stopped at Sickbay's doors, breathing heavily. This wasn't the time for self-dissection, these thoughts would stick around for another sleepless night. Right now she'd been called to her duty, to solve a problem, and she'd do that for sure.

Stubbornly, she straightened her shoulders and held her head high as she strode smoothly inside, perfectly contained. However, she stopped in her tracks smartly as she took in the two men standing waiting for her. As much as she'd been belittling herself in private lately as she struggled with the repercussions of the Quarra Incident, in reality her instincts were still sharp. Within a second she'd subconsciously noted that Chakotay and the Doctor were standing unusually close together, that she could see the whites of the former's dark eyes, usually so carefully calm and steady, and that the latter had almost shrunk in on himself, as if his holo-projectors were malfunctioning. The hairs on the back of her neck rose tall. "What's wrong?" she demanded without preamble.

The Doctor's mouth opened, then shut again abruptly. His wide eyes flickered, unable to settle on her face as he sighed, heavily and brokenly.

Janeway felt her chest tighten. "Doctor…" She started warningly, her jaw locking.

Chakotay intervened, though not before Janeway heard him echo the Doctor's painful sigh. "Captain, we have to talk…"

She'd already shifted and squinted to look past his large frame, and felt the anxiety compressed air in her chest leave her in a gasp as she finally spotted Seven lying on the biobed furthest from the door, around the other side of the Doctor's capsule office. "Seven." She interrupted, surging forward. "What happ…"

Chakotay gently touched her arm as he cut her off. "Quite a lot." He answered grimly, "But we'd better go into the Doctor's office and discuss it…" Janeway shook her head impatiently, distractedly, already moving towards Seven again. This time both his hands locked around her elbows, holding her in place. "_Kathryn_." His use of her first name, and the face that his stoic, almost monotone voice, dropped an octave, immediately made her eyes meet his, he really was going to stop her. "Please." He added huskily and wearily, "Let's just go into the office." Her heart sunk into her chest as she saw, for a split second before he turned away to half drag her towards the office, that his eyes were brimming with emotion.

The Doctor followed them in at once, taking the time to seal the door behind them. Janeway could dimly recall from Voyager's schematics that this little office was soundproofed to ensure that medical staff could conduct a consultation in private with a patient if Sickbay was busy. In practice, she didn't think it'd been used much, in a triage situation privacy tended to go out of the window, and thankfully otherwise the Doctor only tended to have one patient at a time. The only other time she could remember being sealed in here was the time when Kes' hormonal changes had proven particularly…violent and she'd had to be talked down from a place of safety. The Doctor finally turned to face her, his face rueful and full of trepidation. "You'd better sit down Captain…"

"I don't want to sit down." Janeway informed him icily, staring him down. "Not until I know what's going on with Seven."

The Doctor exchanged a desperate glance with Chakotay, who was leaning heavily against the wall, arms crossed tight across his chest. He locked eyes with the Doctor, then cast a lingering glance at Seven outside on the biobed before refocusing pointedly on the Captain. Janeway was unspeakably frustrated by this silent conversation, her fisted hands beginning to shake, but it seemed to have an effect on the Doctor. "A problem has developed within Seven's cortical node…"

"Her cortical node?" Janeway echoed, now gladly taking the chair as horrified weakness overtook her. Gripping its arms, she forced out. "We already got her the only cortical node replacement she could've had…" She glared up at the Doctor accusingly, "You said Icheb's node would probably last her the rest of her life…"

"And hopefully it will." The Doctor said quietly, "I can see no reason why not, if we can get rid of this failsafe component."

Janeway's face softened as she finally absorbed the Doctor's agonised expression. Of course this was in no way his fault. "I'm sorry Doctor." She told him sincerely, "I was shocked, I _am _shocked by this, and I spoke out of turn. Can you explain to me what you're talking about? What 'failsafe component'?"

"It's…" The Doctor's voice failed him, his face churning with emotion. He cast his large eyes up towards the ceiling and Janeway was oddly struck by the memory of him in Fair Haven as the patronising priest, looking up over his flock's heads for dramatic effect. Now however, it seemed as if he really was seeking God, ready to either rage, lament or both. "It's a miniscule component in her cortical node, though we all know that when it comes to cybernetic components size doesn't matter. Actually, the smaller such a component is, the more likely it is to be embedded in some vulnerable bodily function…" He grimaced awkwardly.

"Doctor." Janeway prompted him firmly, her exasperation and anxiety growing in tandem. The Doctor only went off on tangents either when he was trying to prove a point about his abilities, or when he was strenuously trying to avoid something. She knew this instance was an example of the latter.

"Yes…" The Doctor muttered, nodding woodenly at her in acknowledgement, a dull flush combining with the photons of his face. "The point is that this particular component of the cortical node appears to be, sadly I'm _convinced _it's designed to be, a deactivation failsafe, triggered when a drone achieves a certain level of emotional stimulation."

"Seven isn't a drone any longer." Janeway reminded him automatically, then stiffened as her brain began to sift through his words. "I'm sorry…_triggered_? Emotional stimulation?"

Chakotay recognised the characteristic expression of blank, blinking bewilderment on her face at once. She wasn't grasping the situation any quicker than he had, and he recoiled from the idea of reliving his own slow, agonising step-by step realisation through her eyes. That and Seven was conscious and waiting the Captain's say on her operation, just that wait, the anxiety and the shame of it, could literally be killing her, let alone the delay in the surgery itself… That was the straw that broke the back of his restraint. "It's a time bomb set by the Borg." He ground out, making himself as well as Kathryn and the Doctor jump as he kicked at the latter's desk in frustration and hatred. "It's a God damned booby trap!" he snarled, chest heaving. "The Collective may _pretend _to be ignorant of individuality, but they're not!" The fire burning in his belly was stoked up by memories of his manipulation at the hands of the Cooperate, who'd claimed so earnestly to be flailing, to be fighting for all they'd lost, unlike the others on that planet… He thought of the Queen's blackmail of Seven, when he'd had the cynical temerity to think that she was truly going back because she wanted to, because her promise of betrayal was playing out… "They understand it well enough to know how to prevent it, making sure that there's a failsafe buried somewhere, to kill those who rediscover their emotions!"

"Kill?" Janeway echoed him, looking between her First and Medical Officers as she tried to absorb what they'd both said. As much as her brain wanted to reject the conclusions it was drawing, the very fact that Chakotay believed in them enough to let or be unable to prevent, which he did so well, his own emotions exploding was damning evidence. "You're telling me that, inside Seven's cortical node, the one implant so vital to keeping her alive that she had to accept a transplant from Icheb, there's a…failsafe, a _switch _for want of a better word, which deactivates her when she gets too emotional?" Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Doctor open his mouth, undoubtedly in affirmation, and she had to turn away. She ignored the helpless Doctor and Chakotay, who'd come down from his outburst as quickly as it had struck and had somehow recovered his hard, unreadable mark and set it firmly back over his face, even as he leaned over the desk, visibly shaking. Instead of confronting either of them, she moved right to the point where the office gave her a view of Seven's biobed, though really all she could see was the top of her golden crown of hair and the fact that she was perfectly still, hopefully unconscious and unaware of all of this. As she rooted herself to that spot, the conclusions and suspicions that had been briefly blow apart by horror began to reconstitute themselves. "Icheb." She murmured hollowly, "That was Icheb's cortical node first." Her lips twisted into a grimace at the black irony. "Her original cortical node didn't have this failsafe did it? If it had, surely we would've realised before now…" She trailed off, wondering what the Collective's definition of unacceptable levels of emotion was. Whatever it may be, abstract or earthly, Seven had to have reached it before now, or so much of what she'd thought she'd known, believed she'd recognised, in the younger woman was wrong.

"In the ultimate cruel twist of fate, no, I don't think it did." The Doctor replied quietly, "My analysis of a sample cortical node, the one from the Cooperative's Cube I autopsied, showed no sign of the failsafe Seven's afflicted with now. We'll never know for certain, but it's relatively conclusive evidence…"

"I know for certain." The Captain cut him off, finally glancing back at him as he nodded in agreement, then turning her gaze back to Seven. "Then, by liberating Seven, we set in motion a chain of events where every new drone has one of these failsafes." She swallowed thickly, "Meaning that if they were freed, they wouldn't live long enough to enjoy it."

The Doctor regarded her empathically, sensing her budding guilt and feelings of inadequacy. "We don't know that for sure, yes the Collective could have made this…innovation…" He gagged on the word, "…after seeing how Seven has regained her humanity and rejected them, but we have to remember that it could've been much earlier, Seven was assimilated over twenty years ago now and the Collective adapt their techniques daily."

"But it could've been after I first freed her, or after her confrontation with the Queen?" Janeway pressed.

The Doctor grimaced, fully aware that that he'd used that very rationale to console Seven that the chances of the younger Borg children, all assimilated just before Seven's audience with the Queen, were slim. Could he really admit uncertainty about that now, to ease the Captain's guilt? Well, the Captain didn't have an emotional failsafe, his priority had to be Seven. In the end, he hotly told her the only firm truth in all this. "Don't blame yourself for this Captain, that would be just as ludicrous as blaming Seven! This is the Collective's fault!"

That pulled Janeway up short and she realised that blaming herself was just what she'd been slipping into doing. "Of course it is." She assured him, forcing herself to look him in the eyes. "It's just all so…unbelievable."

Chakotay had moved to stand beside her and briefly touched her arm. "I know." He studied her carefully, "And Captain, it's natural to want to find a cause, a simple reason, for something so mind-boggling." His eyes narrowed slightly, "Even casting blame on yourself when there is none can make some things more acceptable." Janeway blushed slightly under his gaze, he knew better than anyone how self-destructive her tendency to over compensate could be. "But we don't have time for that now, Seven is faced with the reality of this."

"Point taken Commander." The Captain said sharply, looking at the Doctor with anxious but demanding eyes. "I presume that you have a solution for this failsafe Doctor, that you can remove it?"

"Either remove or bypass it, I won't be certain until the operation is underway." The Doctor told her, "I would've liked months to study the problem, but the time just isn't there, Seven is too fragile now. It will likely take several operations, gradually bypassing the failsafe until her node has proven stable enough for it to be removed altogether."

"Proceed at once Doctor." The Captain ordered, "I'll grant permission in her best interest, since she's unconscious and doesn't know all this. I regret that she can't hear the risks of it for herself, but I'd prefer if she just woke up with the thing removed, then we can explain why we had to…"

Chakotay couldn't let her continue with that misconception, though in its way it was easier. It went against Seven's wishes and again undermined her independence too much for him to let it pass. He respected her enough to be able to withstand the Captain's reaction. "Seven _does _know Captain, she's given her permission. It was at her request that you were informed."

Janeway blanched, "What do you mean, she knows?" she questioned faintly, "Hasn't she been unconscious since the failsafe activated?"

"No." The Doctor forced out, lowering his head further in shame. "Her failsafe has activated on two separate occasions now, and we narrowly avoided a third activation in here. That's why the operation has truly become urgent now."

The Captain stared at him incredulously, "Wasn't this failsafe an _urgent _enough problem when it first activated?" she demanded, "Why did it take a second activation for you to act?"

"Of course I knew it was urgent!" The Doctor answered, offended, before his bravado left him as quickly as it had come, "But…But I was under the impression at the time that only certain types of emotions triggered the failsafe, and Seven was so determined that she wouldn't experiment or ever experience those emotions again that I…" He trailed off, guilt filling his voice and exuding from his photonic being, "I let her turn down the operation." He gulped, pleading with the Captain for understanding, "Consent is built into my programming Captain, and Seven is an adult and has been given the same privileges as the rest of the crew for years now. I…I didn't feel able to go against her wishes or breech her right to privacy. I thought the situation was stable enough that she'd have the opportunity to come round to the idea, I felt I owed her that much while I wasn't sure if I could do anything for her." His voice began to shake in earnest, "I'm still not sure."

Janeway's eyes had narrowed into exasperated slits. "You don't think I treat Seven like an adult? She's the head of a department, she serves on my Bridge, she attends senior staff meetings… I granted her guardianship of four children! Would I allow a childlike person to have that much responsibility on my ship? Of course not!" she berated them angrily, "Believe me, I understand that Seven's position here has often been…ambiguous, even difficult, but I trust and rely on her judgement as much as any of my senior officers." She sighed heavily, shaking her head as the two men before her seemed suitably chastised. They'd recognised her point, though Chakotay appeared more resigned than openly repentant. "Look…" She began wearily, "With all that said, Seven _is _especially vulnerable." She eyed the Doctor reproachfully, "As much as she's risen above all the…_abuse _she's suffered, and deserves all the respect possible for that, there are still situations where she just can't see clearly. Situations where she needs support. Doctor, I can't believe that _you _of all people, thought for a second she could possibly handle this _alone_!" She braced herself against the desk, her grip white-knuckled. "No one could! An emotional failsafe! If anyone in my crew had such a serious issue, not just Seven, I'd want to know about it, I'd need to know about it!" She regarded him seriously, frowning sadly, "You do understand that, don't you? Voyager's crew is in a unique circumstance. No one can go to their families, this crew has to be that for each other."

"I do understand Captain." The Doctor murmured thickly. He'd made mistakes, Chakotay had pointed them out to him more extensively and pragmatically, but somehow the Captain asking that short, heartfelt question bit deeper into him. Voyager's crew was the only family he'd ever known, the best he was likely to have. The same went for Seven of course…and now that he thought about it, probably for the Captain and Chakotay too. "I thought it was for the best, to give Seven…and myself time to process." He gazed at Janeway painfully, "I didn't know whether I could help her, as you know, I've rarely been able to handle that."

Janeway reached over and squeezed his shoulder in empathy. "Okay." She whispered as she looked back out at Seven. "But you're more certain now? With this plan of several bypass surgeries then eventual removal?"

"I think it would have to be spread over weeks, if not days, to minimise the risks of crisis between each step." The Doctor told her with only a slight quiver in his voice as he settled back into his programmed comfort zone of medicine. "I'd need Mr Paris to assist."

"You'll have him." The Captain guaranteed at once.

Chakotay finally took a step into the intense conversation, literally and figuratively, as he joined them at the Doctor's other side. "What are her odds?" he asked softly, avoiding the Captain's horrified glare. She wouldn't hear of failure now, to think of it was a betrayal.

The Doctor blinked, then replied bluntly, "That she'll recover with the same unhindered emotional range as any other human, without the problem being made worse or facing death?" Emotion made him brutal, he was as fearful of and as offended by the question as their Captain.

Chakotay pursed his lips. "Yes." He replied sharply.

The Doctor's eyes swivelled to the Captain. "50%." He guessed helplessly, "Lower if the failsafe activates again before I start or between any of the operational stages."

Janeway shuddered, sucking in a breath, but hurriedly caught herself and presented a deceivingly confident front. "Let's focus on the 50%, Seven has to." She met the Doctor's eye uneasily as a new thought occurred to her. "Did she say no for Icheb's sake? I wouldn't put it past her to avoid the issue just to spare him knowing that…"

Chakotay ran a hand over his face, they could all remember Icheb's self-surgery against Seven's wishes. "She doesn't know that the failsafe likely wasn't in her original node, only in Icheb's." He bit down on his lip as he exchanged a glance with the Doctor, "That was the one thing we _didn't _tell her."

"Good." Janeway finally muttered after a brief silence. "But she's had this thing for months, why did it only trigger now? You specifically suspected 'certain emotions' at first Doctor…"

The Doctor grimaced, another stab of guilt piercing him. At least he'd been able to consider what to say when Chakotay had confronted him on that point, but with the Captain having pounced on his slip already, he could so easily say too much. He decided to stick to the barest facts. "She was running simulations on the holodeck to explore…certain aspects of her humanity. Creating a personal life for herself of sorts."

The Captain's lips thinned and whitened. "The holodeck?" she echoed dubiously, in that moment only able to recall how utterly dismissive Seven usually was towards the technology, and recreation in general. She groaned softly, "Certain emotions…" She repeated faintly, stumbling backwards until she found the chair again and sinking into it, turning sorrowfully knowing eyes on the Doctor. "Was she trying to recreate Unimatrix Zero?" she asked quietly, "Axum?"

The Doctor met her gaze solemnly, "Not literally." He answered, "But she did admit that she was attempting to recapture some of the experiences she found there."

Janeway briefly lowered her head onto the desk. "Of course." She breathed.

"Axum?" Chakotay echoed, very aware that he was missing something. "One of the drones leading the Unimatrix Zero movement?" He frowned questioningly at the Captain, "I thought you said, Seven herself said, that she couldn't clearly recall much of her time there as a drone. Even though we gave the members the ability to recall their individual selves, with the construct destroyed, their access to most of the stored memories is just…gone."

"That's true." The Doctor agreed, "But how much an individual remembers, how vivid or hazy those memories are, will vary wildly from person to person."

"A memory doesn't need to be complete to haunt you." Janeway reminded them hoarsely, her mind unwillingly slipping back towards Quarra. "And Seven, no, Annika, was so different there. I knew her, but she was also entirely another person…it's hard to describe. And Axum, they'd been in a relationship for seven years before we freed her as Seven."

"Seven years?" Chakotay quickly did the mental math. That meant that this Axum had been her companion in the Collective's parallel existence since her late teens. Even with the consecutive traumas of her link being severed, tenuously reconnected and then the Unimatrix's destruction couldn't wipe out the emotional memory of a relationship of such long standing. Finally what had never seemed right about that mission clicked into place. He'd had his reservations, and had voiced them, while never fully understanding where Seven's commitment came from. Since the plan to retrieve the transwarp drive had gone so awry, Seven had always promoted avoiding the Borg if it were at all possible. It was one policy on which they'd always seen eye to eye. Yes, Unimatrix Zero had needed her help, they were like her, but he'd found it odd how passionate she'd been about it. Even the Borg children hadn't roused her so much. But it had been her lover asking for help, and she'd just done all she could for him, as he would've done in her place, Voyager forgotten.

"She loved him." The Captain declared resolutely.

"Oh yes, 'Annika' certainly did." The Doctor muttered, "I don't know about him, since he never reached out for Seven until he needed her help. And as you said, 'Annika' wasn't quite Seven."

"He believed she was living a full life here, he didn't want to interfere." Janeway countered defensively, "They found each other again and then were lost to each other for good." She swallowed thickly. Again, Chakotay sensed real empathy from her and wondered if she was thinking of Mark…or Jaffen.

"No wonder she was scared and turned you down Doctor." He murmured. He could clearly imagine, despite her supposedly emotionless state, the Borg Queen laughing triumphantly in Seven's face, kicking her back down as she tried to get over the loss of Unimatrix Zero. The failsafe was the final, insidious weapon to make the pursuit of humanity hopeless, futile.

"I should've seen it…" Janeway muttered, "I had her in my Ready Room, maybe she would've told me, but I was just annoyed with her and didn't really listen…" She continually replayed that conversation over and over in her head, wondering what alarm bells she'd missed. Something about the situation had smelled off enough to irritate her, but not enough to treat Seven with real concern. She'd been too tired, too preoccupied with her own problems to see beyond Seven making the situation with the mines worse by her distraction. Had she been particularly harsh on Seven just because she'd seen a reflection of herself in her and was dissatisfied with it?

"You couldn't have foreseen this Captain." Chakotay reassured her wearily. He pushed to the back of his mind the fact that her uncompromising attitude with Seven, which had been overheard by the entire Bridge crew, had been one of the reasons he'd wanted Seven to take some time out and come to the Mess Hall with him. "It's another curveball from the Borg."

Janeway steeled herself, the stubborn grit in her soul coming to the fore. "Well, we'll be batting this curveball back at them." She ground out before looking levelly at the Doctor, "I'll see her now."

The Doctor nodded respectfully and moved aside to let her leave the office, but his voice was firm. "Keep her calm Captain, we can't take any risks." He glanced at Chakotay and sighed, "It was a panic attack that brought her in here."

If it were possible, Janeway's face paled further. "A panic attack?" she whispered, gulping hard, "How…How long has she been prone to those?"

"I don't know." The Doctor replied honestly, shrugging helplessly.

Chakotay briefly considered remaining silent, but quietly said, "I was with her, the first time. At least I think it was the first time."

"So that's why you're involved in this." The Captain realised, though there was still surprise in her face as she studied his intently. Chakotay tried not to feel hurt that she seemed to find the idea of him helping Seven so unexpected, but she softened the impact by gratefully squeezing his elbow. "I'm glad you were with her." She murmured before leading the way out of the office.

"Kathryn." Chakotay called her back, then hesitated as she turned back to look at him. "She's scared." He finally said, feeling the words were deeply inadequate, but all he could think to say in that moment.

"Of course." Janeway agreed, "Of the surgery, I'll reassure her on that…"

"No." Chakotay countered insistently, "Of _emotion_. Of being without the failsafe."

Janeway stared back at him uncertainly. "Understood." She assured him eventually.

* * *

Seven was aware of their voices falling silent, and shivered. Her enhanced hearing meant that the Doctor's office had merely muffled the conversation around her, about her, not blocked it. She could catch words, snatches of explanation and argument, but, for the most part these slipped through her fingers. Translation took oddly conscious effort that she didn't have in her, it hardly mattered. Soon she only picked up on the rolling waves of the Doctor's voice in explanation, the Captain's questioning notes, the warm rumble of Chakotay's voice… Recognisable and soothing, like being accompanied by the Collective again… No, that was incorrect, she should not think like that. The metronome was back, ticking, just a little louder than everything else, invading.

The lights above were making her eyes water. Her implants were on fire but she felt cold. She blinked, but her vision didn't clear. Was the holodeck malfunctioning? Perhaps, she'd been running it too much lately. An irrelevant pursuit, but a compelling one…

"Seven?"

Seven blinked again, the aching sleepiness retreating, the mental fog drawing back. Guilt slammed into her chest even before self-awareness as the Captain's ghostly face swam above her, then solidified. That pain brought her back to herself. "Captain." She mumbled thickly, a greeting that had hardly varied in four years.

"Oh Seven…" Janeway was both relieved and heartbroken as lucidity returned to Seven's at first hazy, inward looking eyes. Why didn't you tell me? She asked silently, railed at her, but all she could bring herself to do was sigh and grasp Seven's hand.

Seven sighed herself, though whether in relief or resignation Janeway wasn't sure. "They told you." She stated shakily. The Captain's grip on her Borg hand hurt, she'd almost gasped from the initial shocking pain of the touch, but stoically she endured it.

"I know you wanted to explain yourself…" The Captain told her carefully, "…and I appreciate that, but Chakotay and the Doctor wanted to spare you that burden right now and they were right to do so." Her lips twitched ruefully as Seven eyed her warily in response. "I'm not angry with them, and certainly not with you. This isn't your fault Seven."

"I was Borg." Seven muttered resignedly, as if that justified everything. Many victims of the Borg would consider this the perfect punishment, she was sure.

"That doesn't mean…" Janeway began heatedly, then stopped herself. "The Doctor plan will work, and then you'll be free to feel whatever you want to…"

Seven's face crumpled in shame and fear and Janeway saw what Chakotay had already recognised. Part of Seven was still afraid of what emotion and humanity meant for her. "I am sorry…" she choked out.

"There's nothing to be sorry for." The Captain assured her, "It's alright to be scared of what this could mean, especially after panic attacks…" She swallowed as she squeezed Seven's hand, "Everyone is afraid of themselves sometimes Seven, everyone. You remember that I locked myself in my quarters for weeks, I couldn't cope with how I was feeling, but I got through it."

Seven nodded in acknowledgement of her point, staying silent for a long time. "There is little choice." She agreed sadly, then turned glinting eyes on the Captain. "You cannot tell Icheb of this."

In any other circumstances Janeway would've pointedly reminded her of what had happened the last time Icheb had been kept in the dark, but she was too stunned. "You knew?"

Seven exhaled, the sound verging on a bitter laugh. "I am even better acquainted with the configuration of cortical nodes than the Doctor Captain, I was fully involved in the assimilation process. This failsafe had not been introduced when I was last linked with the Hive Mind…" Her matter of fact tone failed her and her voice cracked, "Thus…" She left the rest unsaid, instead saying painfully, "The Commander, he promised me he would find a way to contact Mezoti, Azan and Rebi, to check that they do not…"

Janeway felt her heart plunge into her stomach, the thought of the younger children hadn't even occurred to her! Shakily, she stroked Seven's hair soothingly, "If Chakotay made you a promise, he'll keep it." She assured her, "Try not to worry." She continued, "You've had implants removed before, been through so much else besides, you'll get through this too…"

Seven's eyes finally visibly filled with tears and she began to shake. "But I am tired of it…so tired…"

The Doctor allowed the Captain to murmur in heartfelt understanding, to try to comfort her, but still had to step in and sedate Seven. Chakotay watched as all this took place, as the Doctor and the Captain deliberated, then the Doctor began to prepare and Janeway withdrew, walking unsteadily towards him. "She's been through enough…" she choked out tearfully.

"Yes, she has." Chakotay agreed quietly, calmer but equally upset.

Janeway regarded him desperately, "Maybe I didn't do the right thing back then. You warned me how traumatic it would be for her, and I just…"

"¡Por Dios!" Chakotay exclaimed hotly under his breath, losing it at the reference to his own prescience, "What would you prefer exactly?" He sighed brokenly as Kathryn's pained eyes bored into him, but still shook his head at her, "No, you don't get to do that now Kathryn, after all this." He gripped her shoulders, "I get why you're saying so, I do, but…" He set his jaw, "I was still _wrong_, I told Seven that so I may as well tell you. Seven has certainly passed my expectations and even yours I think." He shot her a pointed look and she nodded, "She's as human as the rest of us, and this proves it more than anything despite what the Borg want us to think."

Janeway smiled at him, weakly, as his words sunk in. At the back of her mind, she was wryly aware that this was the only time she could recall Chakotay saying he was wrong so frankly. "You're a good counsellor old friend." She told him gratefully, "Then and now."

Chakotay ran a frustrated hand through his hair, "That doesn't mean we couldn't do with a qualified one."

"I should've had someone train years ago." Janeway conceded, "Not just for Seven, but for all of us."

Chakotay nodded in agreement, but was doubtful as he said, "Maybe someone is willing, but we're all under emotional strain out here, so…"

"We're in contact with Starfleet now, surely we're due some time with the Counselling Department." Janeway pointed out.

"We're in contact for 11 minutes every two weeks." Chakotay reminded her, "We're already on rota to give everyone two minutes with their families, to fit proper counselling in too in that time would be impossible…"

"I'll talk to Starfleet." Janeway replied resolutely, true to form in her distress stubbornly latching on to what she saw as a potential partial solution. "Every if everyone has to communicate with a counsellor by letter, we'll make a start."

"You wouldn't hear any argument from me." Chakotay assured her, hardly surprised when after firmly instructing the Doctor to keep her updated, Janeway left to pursue her new, comforting plan just as Tom arrived to assist the Doctor. For his part, Chakotay stayed in Sickbay.

* * *

**A/n: Please review. For more C/7 to read, I can't recommend cojack's new story 'Family' highly enough. I like it so much I _almost _wish I'd come up with it myself, but then I wouldn't be able to enjoy reading it, lol. Check it out! :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/n: Thank you to my beta, NikkiB1973. :)**

**I do not own Star Trek: Voyager.**

* * *

"Deck 8." Damn it, his voice sounded terrible, hoarse and shaky. Hungover almost. Or maybe more like the time he'd snuck a puff of his uncle's tobacco stash and inhaled too sharply. Weepy eyes, a mouth and throat that felt like sandpaper and tasted worse; yep, it was pretty much the same. He could still remember his mother tearing a strip out of her brother-in-law for that, especially when he tried to protest that tobacco did have a spiritual element to it. 'Not your kind of tobacco!' She'd shot back, startling both her son and his uncle, then turning her wrath on her husband when he had the temerity to laugh under his breath… Chakotay tried to laugh now, to focus on the memory of his slight, usually quiet, mother ruthlessly getting her menfolk back in line, but it wouldn't come. Only a puff of air, the start of a stifled sigh or the end of a silent groan, escaped his lips to graze his rough palm as he ran it over his face once more. That hand had begun to shake before it even drew away.

Experimentally, though with frustration forming a familiar tight band around his chest, he clenched and unclenched, but the hand, fist or not, continued to quiver with nervous energy. He held both of his hands in front of him, willing them to be still, to be calm, but instead his breath grew more rapid with the effort. God damn it! One breath in, one breath out, one breath… The tactile memory of holding Seven's quaking body as he repeated similar instructions around slammed into his mind, and his body actually recoiled, taking a single stumbling step back until his back clattered against the wall of the turbolift. Eyes he hadn't realised he'd squeezed shut flew back open but the bleep of his comm. badge cut through even the roar of his own heavy breathing.

"Bridge to Chakotay." Harry Kim's sprightly voice felt alien to Chakotay in that moment, surreally unfettered by the emotional weight that burdened his First Officer.

He was disconcerted enough that when he practically slapped his comm. badge, its pin forced back into the fabric of his uniform until the skin underneath felt a sharp nip. "What is it Harry?"

"Everything's fine here Commander…" Harry's bright tone suddenly dimmed with his old green diffidence, "…it's just that you're a half hour late for your shift…"

"Shit!" Chakotay vented unthinkingly then clamped his jaw down, further agitated by his second slip in as many hours; had it really been just two hours since he'd found Seven… He prided himself on self-control, absolute professionalism, though he rarely bothered to reprimand anyone else for swearing, even while Starfleet advised that vulgar language be curtailed, in an effort to avoid offence and confusion over the Universal Translator. He knew many considered him prim, old school, but he couldn't curtail this self-consciousness of even mild outbursts. Throughout his career as a Starfleet officer he had been hyper aware of what he perceived to be the popular image of colonists; perhaps still of Native Americans. Rough, contrary, volatile; conscripts for the Cardassian War as much as they'd been for wars on Earth itself for centuries. Not officers, _leaders_, but followers, fodder. He had to be unimpeachable… He saw the irony in this of course, since he'd cast it all off to join the Maquis, to reclaim his colonial and warrior identity, but old habits, protective guises, died hard. After Seska had played on his impulses like…like a maestro, he'd reined them in even more. And yet it had fallen to him to talk to Seven about the dangers of doing just that, he'd been witnessing the consequences… "Sorry Harry, I just…"

"No, no, don't worry about it!" Harry replied too eagerly down the comm. line, obviously backtracking. "Like I said, everything is really fine up here. I just thought I'd check in, you might've been swallowed by an entity or something after all, this is Voyager…" He chuckled weakly, and Chakotay managed a grimacing smile to himself as he recalled when he and Tuvok had fallen prey to 'Grendel' on the holodeck, trying, and failing spectacularly, to save Harry.

"I'm the one who disciplines the crew if they're late Harry." Chakotay reminded him wearily, "I'll be right there." He disconnected the comm. line before the younger man could reply and barked an order to the turbolift just as it reached Deck 8. "Bridge!" A surge of guilty relief flooded him as the turbolift obediently continued up through the decks, putting off his obligation in Astrometrics. He'd promised her, the kids could be in danger right now, but he still couldn't stop himself from shrinking back from the possible confirmation of that threat.

Harry, along with everyone else on the Bridge, Tuvok being the usual exception, glanced around as Chakotay came onto the Bridge. Immediately, he regretted that he'd allowed the others to egg him into contacting the First Officer, calling him out on his lateness, trying to satisfy the curiosity that had been burning through the Bridge like a wildfire. Chakotay looked terrible, pale and dazed, as if someone had just punched him repeatedly in the gut. Since he was an amateur boxer, he might well have, but just like the Captain, who avoided the ring on principle, his face was drawn, eyes haunted but guarded. If anything, he looked worse than the Captain, who'd blown onto her Bridge like a whirling dervish. After huskily telling Tuvok he had the Bridge, she'd disappeared into her Ready Room.

Chakotay's hand lifted to run over his face, but he caught himself as he felt eyes on him and pinned back to his side. "Status report?"

Tuvok finally acknowledged him, though he'd been observing everything. "All systems functioning within normal parameters. Pursuing our course to the Alpha Quadrant at Warp 7.8…"

"Commander?" Janeway suddenly appeared at the threshold of her Ready Room. She gave Tuvok an apologetic look but turned back into her Ready Room without another word. Chakotay obeyed her cue and followed her in.

Janeway made her way back to her desk and sank behind it, gazing with woeful expectation up at Chakotay as he stood awkwardly, shoulders slumped. Despite his beaten down stance, he knew their pattern well enough to start the conversation. "How are your…plans going?"

Janeway glanced down at the PADDs littering her usually tidy desk, mirroring her disordered thoughts. "I intend to make this counselling possible for all of us at least, but…" Her tense shoulders shrugged sharply, "…how I'm going to coordinate it with the little time we have with the MIDAS array I've not figured out yet." She grimaced, "And who among us will want to train as a counsellor when we're all going through this?" Looking at him, she was again struck with fresh appreciation of unofficial counselling role he'd taken on from the start, the toll it must've taken on him, the weight off her own shoulders… "You had a point Chakotay, but I'm not willing to give up on this." _Or Seven_ was left unsaid, but Chakotay heard it loud and clear.

"Nor should we." Chakotay answered; tellingly, without missing a beat, even as the eyes that met hers were dark and unreadable.

"Yes." Janeway whispered thickly, then quickly squared her shoulders, asking more crisply, "You stayed in Sickbay?"

"Until the Doctor and Tom…started on the surgery." Chakotay confirmed stiltedly, running a half-clenched hand through his hair as he gave a dry gulp.

The Captain immediately gave him a thoroughly compassionate, and guilty, look. She'd hadn't even thought of the necessity of letting the Doctor's reluctant assistant into this horrible loop. "I should've stayed…" She sucked in a breath, "Tom would be asking the same questions that we had." She gazed at her First Officer tremulously as she rose from her desk, "Did you…"

"Actually, Tom got down to business almost immediately." Chakotay interrupted, not without admiration. "Didn't ask any more questions than what he could do for Seven now, and afterwards." He shook his head, smiling wanly, "It seems you were right to make him a medical assistant back then, despite his protests." Kathryn mirrored the smile, briefly, but wasn't in the mood for dwelling pleasantly, as admittedly she sometimes did, on the fact that she'd been proven right on Tom's potential. Chakotay sighed, his brows creasing in an inward glare of frustration, "No, I didn't stay there out of nobility, to help the Doctor or explain things to Tom, to make sure Seven wasn't alone…" His voice broke bitterly, "I was psyching myself up to contact the kids, which is the only thing I _can _try to do, but…" He shook his head roughly, and for a moment Kathryn was reminded of the bear she'd once been so convinced, in vain, was Chakotay's 'spirit guide'. He made a sharp turn back towards the door, in apparent decision. "I'll go and start on it now. If they do have this _failsafe_…" He spat out the word in horrified contempt, "…then I don't have a minute to lose…"

"Wait Chakotay, just wait!" Janeway ordered sharply, hands raised to grasp at him even as they were still several strides apart, the gap widening as he seemed determined to leave. She exhaled as he halted, though he held his body so taut that she knew he was only obeying her through habit, rather than really hearing her. "Don't be rash." She chided softly, "You're taking too much of this on yourself." His head turned back slightly to shoot her a sidelong glance, but she held her ground, though just as aware as he was that he could had basically given her the same, _stronger_, advice when they'd both been in Sickbay. She sighed, her hands propping on her hips as he slowly moved to face her again. "The Doctor was…relatively sure the children wouldn't be affected." His jaw tightened and she felt her own heart twist as she thought of Mezoti and the twins. Nothing but _absolute _certainty would be enough. "What I'm saying is, what's happened to Seven has been a shock, but we need to think rationally, _you _impressed that on me." She watched him expectantly, "Have you thought through what to tell Icheb, let alone the other kids?"

Chakotay, generally the one more aware of any ironies between them, under most circumstances would've been left darkly amused or irritated by this role reversal, but right then he recognised none of that and was only blankly incredulous. "Tell Icheb?" he echoed dumbly, recoiling from the saddened resignation in her eyes. He bristled with stricken exasperation, "She _begged _us not to tell him!" he reminded her accusingly, "And there's damned good reason for that, you heard the Doctor's explanation for how…"

"Yes, I remember it all!" Janeway cut him off sharply before her voice dropped low, "I've had the whole hellish scene going round in my head since I left Sickbay." She stared Chakotay down until he finally broke the gaze, though he wasn't ready to back down entirely, even as his stance softened slightly with contrition.

"Kathryn, what do you want me to say?" he questioned quietly, "There's no way we can tell Icheb. It's too much. I wouldn't put that guilt on him even if Seven had allowed it, even if it was my place to tell him…"

"I understand Chakotay, believe me." Janeway murmured, her eyes despondently large in her white face, "But the way I see it, we don't have option of keeping him _entirely _in the dark. Seven is going to have to be on leave for weeks, have several more surgeries, he _will _take measures to find out what's going on if we shut him out. It blew up in our faces last time…" She shuddered at the memory of seeing Icheb sagging in his alcove, having just removed his cortical node himself to press it on Seven…

Chakotay winced, "There's little he can do this time." He pointed out thickly, "Even that unexpected and extreme, but you want to spin him a story?"

"How is that worse than not telling him anything?" Janeway asked bluntly and took his silence as him seeing her point. "We're not going to lie, we'll tell him most of the truth. To be honest, he's likely seen more of Seven's emotional state lately than either of us…" She trailed off guiltily, still sensitive of her own neglect, "But I absolutely agree that there's no reason to bring the role of his cortical node into the explanation, that would hurt him and Seven even more than necessary."

"Yes." Chakotay whispered, then took a deep breath, forcing his sunken shoulders back, "You're right Captain, I'm sorry I didn't see it." He still didn't _want _to see it, would've rather kept Icheb in an undisturbed, happy bubble about Seven being healthy and with him; he knew the horrific pain of that bursting, of a parent's sudden and rapid decline… Pushing emotion into the background however, looking at the wider picture Kathryn had drawn, he could see that it was impossible. Of course Icheb would want to know, would demand to know, what was going on with Seven as soon as he realised something was amiss. As young as he still considered the boy, he wasn't a child who could be soothed and distracted until everything had come to a head for better or worse, the very fact that Seven had his cortical node now at all was testament to that.

"I didn't want to either." Janeway admitted, putting a hand on his shoulder, "But for Seven's sake, the crew's sake, I can't keep putting my head in the sand." She shook her head, unhappiness and disappointment in herself radiating off her to such an extent that Chakotay's compassionate heart felt the need to ease it, even as his more detached mind readily acknowledged that she'd been especially distant and disengaged from all of them, not just Seven, for weeks at least. He fervently wished that it had taken an event far less agonising than this to knock Kathryn back into her 'A' game.

"No one could've foreseen this." He finally told her.

The Captain didn't answer him directly, her face tautly thoughtful for a moment before she stepped towards the door, chancing a glance back at him, "Come with me to talk to him?"

Though his stomach churned, Chakotay moved into step with her. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

"Captain, Commander." Icheb greeted simply, standing as solidly upright as the consoles that surrounded him. Chakotay was used to the parade standard stance, the solemn attentiveness that seemed ingrained as well as fastidiously learned by the cadet-in-waiting. Usually, whenever Chakotay entered Astrometrics, he'd relax after a few moments. After all, Chakotay's visits, though brief, occurred daily, or throughout the day if the region Astrometrics was assessing was interesting or dangerous. He was also only second to Seven in teaching the boy. More often than not, Icheb would immediately launch into a conversation about any research he'd been doing for homework whenever he saw Chakotay, and would continue in more and more detail until Seven took pity on Chakotay and reined their student in. Under easier circumstances, Chakotay would've cracked a smile at Icheb's evident desire to please the Captain, much like he'd been on the rare few times in his childhood when a Starfleet officer had deigned to visit his village on Dorvan V. Seeing him now though, without Seven watching on, indulging and protecting him, he struck Chakotay as vulnerable. Easily hurt. Easily disillusioned. Even then, a questioning light was dawning in his still respectful eyes when neither his Captain nor Chakotay could bring themselves to respond to him. "What do you require of me?" He glanced back at Astrometrics' main screen, "Systems are operating at 83.4% efficiency. Scans are showing that currently there is little of interest to distract from our course to the Alpha Quadrant…"

"I'm glad to…" Janeway's voice petered out, she had to swallow hard as she gazed at the boy with her heart in her eyes. "I'm glad to hear it Icheb." She managed thickly.

Icheb allowed himself a small smile at that, more tellingly his face glowed with pride and satisfaction as he nodded. Still, as the moment passed, he obviously picked up on something. Chakotay's heart sank as the younger man shot him a curious look, evidently thinking it too impertinent to direct it towards his Captain. "Icheb, son, we need to talk to you." Chakotay forced out, hating how strangled his voice sounded. He hadn't found telling anything as difficult since he'd had to tell his friends about the fate of their fellow Maquis.

Icheb's face instantly tautened in concern, his gaze eminently serious. "Concerning what?" He blanched at once as he read the clues in the Captain's still reddened eyes. "Seven?" he choked out, flinching when their heads sunk lower rather than their lips issuing stringent denials. "What happened?"

"She's in Sickbay." The Captain told him softly, gently taking his hand in hers. It was quivering. "The Doctor has had to undertake emergency surgery."

As he visibly struggled to absorb that, anger began to compete with distress in Icheb's wide eyes. "She didn't tell me." His jaw locked, "She didn't inform me she was sick."

Janeway squeezed his hand, hard. She had to curtail that line of thought. "It was sudden Icheb, brutal." She gulped, but forced herself to begin as she intended to go on. "She…didn't know herself. The Doctor had to inform _me _while she was unconscious, and Chakotay too."

"I found her in the Cargo Bay." Chakotay told him honestly, "She didn't have the chance…" He trailed off. It was true, she hadn't had any time to absorb the blow, other than to deny it had happened, before it knocked her down.

Icheb began to blink rapidly as guilt overcame him, but he had to know. "How did the Doctor explain what happened? Does he have a diagnosis? A treatment? You said he was operating…"

"He is." The Captain confirmed, "And he'll need to do so again, maybe several times." She forced herself to look him in the eye, "Something…caused a…cascade error in her implants." She thanked God in that moment for her Science Officer experience, "We're not sure why…" She sucked in a breath, "But Seven has been through a lot in recent moments. The contact with Unimatrix Zero, the brainwashing by the Quarrans, either or both of those things could've caused a shift…" Not really a lie, she reasoned.

"She has been acting…differently, especially recently." Icheb realised unhappily as he looked to Chakotay for support, "You spoke to her Commander, she was being late to her shifts, distracted." Chakotay tried not to wince, he knew Icheb wasn't casting blame his way, far from it, he was seeking corroboration, help in understanding, but he laid some responsibility on himself all the same. He only given Seven's out-of-character distraction the most cursory of enquiries. He'd just thought at the time that she was finally cutting herself some slack, oh how wrong he'd been! That was part of the reason he'd been annoyed when she'd blown off his offer of the cooking class, in his eyes she'd been retreating backwards again. "But she told me she was correcting that behaviour, that 'error' she said…" Icheb continued, then looked to Chakotay again, "Do you recall that I was learning human expressions Commander?"

Chakotay was caught off guard by the change in subject. "Yes, I gave you some. Why?"

"Because the last time I saw her, Seven asked me if I had learned an expression meant to alleviate guilt." Icheb told them. His voice broke, "Did she ask me that because she already felt ill and…"

Chakotay gripped Icheb's other shoulder, "Seven didn't have anything to feel guilty about Icheb." He said clearly, "What's happened was beyond her control."

"Chakotay's right Icheb." Janeway told him in a voice that brooked no argument, "Now, what we need from you is for you to go and be checked by the Doctor…" Just because his body now that the cortical node that was causing Seven so much agony, didn't mean that he didn't have another ticking time bomb inside him. She wasn't about to take any chances, and he couldn't be led to make the connection between his donated node and Seven's current state.

Icheb shrugged them both off, "It's unlikely that we share the problem. As you know, I was only partially assimilated because my parents' virus infected the drones in the Borg vessel."

"But we do need to contact Mezoti and the twins." Janeway advised him gently, "You understand why, don't you Icheb? It doesn't mean they're in danger, but we need to be sure…"

"Of course!" Icheb cut her off passionately, then turned sharply into the main console, "I will proceed with contacting them now."

"Let Harry do that Icheb…" The Captain pressed, almost pleadingly.

"I can do it faster than Ensign Kim." Icheb countered, already at work. Still, he released a shaky sigh, "I will not insist that I talk to them Captain, you will do that best, but let me do this, _please_."

Janeway eyes met Chakotay's tormented ones woefully in the face of such an emphatic argument. She could do nothing but nod in resigned agreement.

* * *

"Commander." The Doctor greeted, running an anxious and weary hand over his balding head as Chakotay stepped fully into Sickbay. "I thought you'd be back."

"You're finished?" Chakotay questioned, seeing that Tom was no longer here and Seven lay undisturbed on the biobed. "The Captain's waiting for your report." He told the hologram shortly.

"I was just preparing to call the Ready Room, if that's where she is?"

Chakotay sighed heavily, "She won't be going to bed tonight Doctor, you'll get her."

The Doctor hesitated, eyeing Chakotay apprehensively. He looked burnt out, physically and emotionally, and the stricken expression in his eyes as he stared at Seven, when he was normally so controlled, made the Doctor's own mood sink lower. "It went as well as I could've expected." He told him quietly, "She's stable, and safe, for now, but it'll take two more surgeries, perhaps three, before I can be sure I've rooted the damned thing out. She'll come around soon, and I'll be telling her that then putting her straight in her alcove for at least 72 hours."

"You're bringing her round already?" Chakotay questioned, "But it's only been…"

"I know." The Doctor interrupted, "But Seven's metabolism works against me by being resistant to anaesthetics." He grit his teeth, "It's another of the Collective's cruel ironies that while she can't seem to hold her drink, anaesthetics and painkillers aren't as potent."

Chakotay gave a horrified grimace. All the surgeries Seven had already endured were even worse than he'd thought. "I never knew…" He whispered.

"No." The Doctor stated simply, damnably. "Have you made any progress in contacting the children?" he asked urgently.

Chakotay's face instantly sagged in relief. "Icheb made short work of it." He exhaled so heavily he felt dizzy, "They're fine. Azan and Rebi's mother, the Captain and I sent her your parameters and she checked all three of them. None have the failsafe. ¡Gracias a Dios!"

"Yes, thank God!" The Doctor echoed. If deities acknowledged sentient holograms, then his pleas had been heard today. "What…what did you tell the kids?"

"Very little." Chakotay admitted, not without guilt. "They just took our and their mother's word for it that they needed to be scanned. They were telling me all about what they're doing, their classes, their games…" The lump in his throat choked him.

"Seven will want to hear that too." The Doctor reminded him kindly. He'd already seen that Seven was waking, the soft moan from her biobed only confirmed it, but it made Chakotay jump. "I shouldn't do this, but she'd decompile me if I stopped you from giving her the good news."

Chakotay numbly followed the Doctor towards the biobed, but his feet stuttered as he saw that Seven's skin had lurid patches of flushed skin, though her general skin tone was a sickly grey. "Is she running a fever?" he whispered anxiously.

"She always does in the first few hours of me doing anything major to her implants." The Doctor answered, "I surmise it's an immune response." He sighed, "Really, what I do know about the delicate balance between her human and cybernetic systems could fill a medical journal and what I'm not sure of could fill a database."

That was the most humble Chakotay had heard the Doctor be about Seven, but he hardly cared in that moment, instead lightly touching Seven's cheek comfortingly as a pained frown settled deep in her features. She was burning up, but the Doctor was ready with a compress and a hyprospray as she turned into Chakotay's touch. "Seven? Seven, can you hear me?" The Doctor asked softly.

After a second or so her lids, with those long gold lashes, began to blink leadenly as her full but bloodless lips parted in a grimace. "Yes." Chakotay was stunned she was that cognisant.

"The surgery was successful." The Doctor said, his voice ringing clear. A strained smile stretched his lips as Seven's eyes half opened and she gazed back at him. "But you're going to have to regenerate for some time before we proceed to the next treatment stage."

"I understand." Her dull tone made Chakotay think they'd been through this exact conversation before, but then they in all probability had. Maybe Seven didn't quite remember, or realise yet, all that had happened this time. He underestimated her again. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, Chakotay saw them widen, felt her jerk, her chest quiver. "Chakotay…" She breathed, blinking rapidly. Neither of the two saw that the Doctor was instantly on guard, watching her readings.

"Hey." Chakotay managed, "I don't think I've ever been happier to see you Seven."

Seven's brow furrowed deeper and her gaze was dark with feeling even as her brow twitched weakly. "Even…Even when I pulled you up from that crumbling cliff edge?"

Chakotay gave a start before a hoarse, near hysterical laugh left him. "You're right, maybe then."

Seven visibly shrank into herself, weak and beaten as she already was. "You contacted the children?" she whispered with gargantuan effort.

"I did." Chakotay confirmed shakily, "They're fine." He heard her gasping, painful sob of relief but kindly didn't scrutinise her. "We…we checked three times. They're laughing, playing, learning, and _safe. _They want to talk to you next time, don't let them down."

Seven started to cry in earnest and even as he held her hand a stroked her face, he exchanged a nervous look with the Doctor who was scanning her. His own tearful smile was enough. The failsafe had been silenced for now.

* * *

**A/n: Please review.**


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